Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

[badpuppy]

 

 

"Her mind is her brain. The brain is a biological machine for thinking. If it wasn't for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of -- beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium but it would sit there, going, 'I think, therefore, I am.'"

 

 

I don't believe the mind is the brain and I also don't believe you can prove it. It's merely an assertion from your materialistic assumption. I eagerly await your beer can brain. Please let me know when it is ready and I can have a rational conversation with it and observe its emotional state.

 

 

 

 

I guess it depends. I react negatively when people cite ghosts when the temperature in the room drops or when the cat bolts under the bed; when people pray to a god and then interpret what happens next as the answer; when people say that everything happens for a reason; and when constantine thinks he sees a cross in the clouds and decides an entire empire should convert. These are the kinds of things I'm not even ok with hearing at anything more than a polite distance of, say, brief acquaintance. Otherwise, I may be prone to an involuntary eye roll.

 

I don't believe in ghosts.

 

I also can't say that I really appreciate my view being reduced to "ghosts". Great philosophers have asked these questions. Some have come to the POV I have, others have come to other POV's, including the materialistic assumption, but to behave as if it's childish to hold a different point of view about a question that has been seriously considered by philosophers throughout the ages indicates to me that for all the science you may know, you don't seem to have supplemented it with much philosophical understanding, which seems a little unbalanced to me.

 

I also don't "pray" to "god".

 

Materialists think everything happens for a reason. It's called determinism.

 

My name isn't Constantine. I don't believe he saw a cross in those clouds, anyway. I think it's far more likely he saw a brilliant way to control and terrorize people and used it.

 

Oh dear! Not an eye roll. I'm sorry you must suffer so. eye rolling can be such a bother.

 

Maybe sarcasm isn't helpful here, but you aren't the only one who gets frustrated by these sorts of exchanges. The difference is... my issue isn't your materialism, it's your smug certainty that you are "right".

None of my response was directed at you, I was just responding to Antlerman. I happen to know a woman who believes in ghosts and is always mentioning them. The other stuff is my personal experiences with people and ideas. You see? It's not about you. At all.

 

As with the dreaming apple, all you have to do is cut open the brain to watch the mind burst into nothing. Dependency = my point.

 

Once again, http://en.wikipedia....God_of_the_gaps

 

I know you were responding to Antlerman, but earlier in your post you said "her mind IS her brain". If i wasn't the "her" you were referring to, then I apologize for the assumption that I was. You had just been carrying on a conversation with me and basically writing me off as some little weirdo. I mean... I could rehash the whole thing but why bother? It was at that point in the conversation that Antlerman arrived on the scene, replying to comments you had made directly to me. I think it should be obvious why I thought you were referring to me. Either way, I don't think you were referring to "just me", but merely that you lumped me in with "all the crazy people who believe weird shit."

 

Even if you were thinking of some woman you know who believes in ghosts... (I'm not prepared to say they don't exist, just that they aren't part of my personal belief. I could be wrong about the phenomena)... you WERE lumping me and my views in with that. Because all of this flowed from a few exchanges you and I had.So I dunno, to me it feels like you're just shifting things around to come out blameless. It comes off as a little disingenuous to me.

[badpuppy]

I don't believe in ghosts.

 

I also can't say that I really appreciate my view being reduced to "ghosts".

How dare you take that superior tone of voice toward the ghost hypothesis. Don't you have any assumptions of your own? What makes your silly beliefs superior to theirs?! Just respect their beliefs, goddammit!

 

When you get going on this subject, bp, what I hear is a defense of Christianity. "You can't prove life-is-a-dream/god isn't true / doesn't exist, so that makes you arrogant to think that you're right." That has 0 mileage with me, ok, in all its forms, not just when deployed in defense of the christian religion. That idea can go fuck itself in a back room, its caused so much wasted time and suffering I really won't mind its passing.

 

Imo, Spinoza should have stuck to grinding glass.

 

I actually didn't take a "superior tone" toward the ghost hypothesis. I stated that i didn't believe in them. You were lumping a lot of thoughts together in this discussion to make it seem as if everyone who isn't a materialist thinks the same way. (And if you weren't doing that, then what was your point in bringing up ghosts in the first place? This thread isn't about ghosts. Just because you know a lady who believes in ghosts doesn't actually make that particularly relevant to the idea that the world might not be as "material" and "mechanistic" as you think.)

 

Me saying I personally don't believe in ghosts is not equivalent to deriding those who do. I also have stated before that just because I don't believe in them doesn't mean they aren't real. (I've also stated pure materialism could be true. I just don't personally think that it is.) My reasons for not believing in ghosts are not purely logical and I admit there is an emotional component to my disbelief... i.e. I do not want to have to deal with them in my reality. There is too much in this world to deal with as it is without introducing ghosts and goblins into the mix. But that doesn't make them "automatically not real" whether I personally believe in them or not.

 

It feels very much like you can't make that distinction. As if you feel you are inferfacing with reality "as it is", rather than just your perception of it. Might i suggest reading some of Immanuel Kant's thoughts on this subject.

 

And of course I have assumptions of my own. My point is that we ALL have assumptions. Including materialists. Assumptions are not facts. I recognize that. Do you?

 

I think it's disingenuous to compare this to a defense of Christianity. I'm not actually "defending" anything but my right to have my own honest perceptions about life... something many materialists seem to feel only they have a right to since of course... they are "right". (If it walks like dogmatism and quacks like dogmatism....)

 

It IS arrogant to think you can't be wrong. On ANY subject. It's arrogant when a Christian does it, when a Buddhist does it, and when an Atheist does it. it's arrogant when ANYBODY does it. It's not that you can't think you're right, it's that I haven't seen any evidence you think there is even the slimmest possibility you could be wrong. If I've misread your intent, then I apologize, but you seem fairly dogmatic to me with regards to views that aren't materialistic.

 

Do you think it unmakes my world that something I say or think has 0 mileage with you? My question is... why should all your perceptions about reality carry mileage for everyone else?

 

No one here has asked you personally to believe in anything, just to show a basic level of respect to those who perceive the world differently from you... not for what they believe specifically but because they are people, too. And caricaturing them as ignorant, stupid, or crazy, won't win you many friends... except of the variety that thinks exactly like you. If you don't care, fine. But don't act like you're making the world a better place.

 

You seem to make the mistake of assuming a world without belief in anything would be a better world. I don't believe it would be. It's not the beliefs/philosophies themselves (except where they are directly harmful... but stereotyping all spiritual belief with fundamentalist spiritual belief is irrational). The problem is how we TREAT EACH OTHER, not what we believe. If you still think it's about philosophical positions/spiritual beliefs themselves, that's part of the problem, not part of the solution.

[Antlerman]

Systems theory, the complexity sciences, etc are still however in their own ways reductionistic. They are about analyzing everything in behaviorist means or component interactions, or components themselves. It is the subjective mind analyizing the objective world. Any science that looks at behavior for instance is analyizing the surfaces. That same method cannot be used to understand mind as mind. It frankly is the easier task to anaylyize the surface features, rather than the internal landscapes. And to be certain, those internal landscapes impact the external, and vise versa.

Here's the kicker though. When you analyze how they analyze things, you are also using reductionism. You, yourself, have the risk of falling into the "reduction" trap when you look at how science works and forget to look at a wider picture. Some parts of science must be based on reducing the problem.

Certainly I recognize the validity of using reductionism to analyize things. The complaint really is the philosophical extension of that to everything being reducable to the physical domains. I don't accept that. I see non-reducablity in higher domains being valid as well. That is emergentism. There are emergent properties which, even though comprised of lower domains, do not function by the rules of the lower domains. This is what I touched on in talking about determinism. Determism looks at the lower domains and claims to be able to explain and predict higher function through them. Its the same thing with behaviorism. "Mind is brain", is a great expression of this sort of philosophical reductionsim.

 

These domains other philosophers of science has categorized that I find helpful are the physiosphere, the bioshpere, and the noosphere. A big deal is made how that without the brain, mind wouldn't exist. Big whoopie. Without the atoms the body wouldn't exist either. But is this statement true, "The body is atoms" Yes, the body is made up of atoms, but it's biology is biological, not atomic! Same thing with mind. Yes, the mind emerges out of brain, but the mind is the mind. The basic understanding is this, the higher transcends and includes the lower into itself; and additionally, the higher is more complex than the lower, as well as less in span of numbers.

 

The entire universe is full of particles, but there are really, really basic. Beings with higher congitive functions are very, very complex, and are very few in numbers compared to particles or atoms. The other rule is this, that if you destroy the higher, you leave the lower in tact, but if you destroy the lower, you also destroy the higher - no matter what it is. So the argument "If you destroy the brain you destroy the mind" does not at all prove that "the mind is brain", it means that it is higher than brain and if you destroy the lower you take the higher with it. Example, destroy all atoms and everything higher than it goes too. But that does not at all mean that the higher can be understood by looking only at the lower.

 

I'm not going there yet, but you can add higher domains than mind (the noosphere), such as the theosphere, which is a latter discusion. In short, I don't believe spiritual domains are reducable to mind, any more than I believe mind is reducable to body, any more than I believe body is reducable to atoms. That all there is is material. The mind is one clear example to deny that.

 

For science to work, you must break it to parts and consider parts by themselves, and then together, and see it from many different perspectives. That is how science works. How else should it work? Guess, and then conclude from feelings?

I'm out of time here, but I'll quickly add that science is already using the mental domains in analyzing the objective physical world. This is a different process that mind to mind. In the emperic-analytic sciences you have mind to material (symbolic reality to physical reality). In the hermenutic sciences you have mind to mind (symbolic reality to symbolic reality).

 

I think we need to have a discussion of what excatly science is and how it works. I'll suggest there is a difference between an emperical approach and traditional empericism itself. What people call science, is the sensory world domain, mind to materal. That is empericism in a narrow sense, not a broader sense which allows for truth verification in the higher domains. Have to run....

[Vigile]

The complaint really is the philosophical extension of that to everything being reducable to the physical domains. I don't accept that

 

Bottom line this for me if you can. Do you believe in an afterlife, i.e., the continuation of your own personal consciousness when your brain dies? If not, then is it fair to say at the end of the day you are ultimately discussing feelings and experiences here and now?

 

I'm contuniually lost in your responses because they are so esoteric and offer nothing concrete that I can wrap my mind around. I don't think I'm alone in this.

 

Yes, I'm attempting to reduce here.

[VacuumFlux]

Systems theory, the complexity sciences, etc are still however in their own ways reductionistic. They are about analyzing everything in behaviorist means or component interactions, or components themselves. It is the subjective mind analyizing the objective world. Any science that looks at behavior for instance is analyizing the surfaces. That same method cannot be used to understand mind as mind. It frankly is the easier task to anaylyize the surface features, rather than the internal landscapes. And to be certain, those internal landscapes impact the external, and vise versa.

Here's the kicker though. When you analyze how they analyze things, you are also using reductionism. You, yourself, have the risk of falling into the "reduction" trap when you look at how science works and forget to look at a wider picture. Some parts of science must be based on reducing the problem.

Certainly I recognize the validity of using reductionism to analyize things. The complaint really is the philosophical extension of that to everything being reducable to the physical domains. I don't accept that. I see non-reducablity in higher domains being valid as well. That is emergentism. There are emergent properties which, even though comprised of lower domains, do not function by the rules of the lower domains. This is what I touched on in talking about determinism. Determism looks at the lower domains and claims to be able to explain and predict higher function through them. Its the same thing with behaviorism. "Mind is brain", is a great expression of this sort of philosophical reductionsim.

 

These domains other philosophers of science has categorized that I find helpful are the physiosphere, the bioshpere, and the noosphere. A big deal is made how that without the brain, mind wouldn't exist. Big whoopie. Without the atoms the body wouldn't exist either. But is this statement true, "The body is atoms" Yes, the body is made up of atoms, but it's biology is biological, not atomic! Same thing with mind. Yes, the mind emerges out of brain, but the mind is the mind. The basic understanding is this, the higher transcends and includes the lower into itself; and additionally, the higher is more complex than the lower, as well as less in span of numbers.

 

The entire universe is full of particles, but there are really, really basic. Beings with higher congitive functions are very, very complex, and are very few in numbers compared to particles or atoms. The other rule is this, that if you destroy the higher, you leave the lower in tact, but if you destroy the lower, you also destroy the higher - no matter what it is. So the argument "If you destroy the brain you destroy the mind" does not at all prove that "the mind is brain", it means that it is higher than brain and if you destroy the lower you take the higher with it. Example, destroy all atoms and everything higher than it goes too. But that does not at all mean that the higher can be understood by looking only at the lower.

 

I'm not going there yet, but you can add higher domains than mind (the noosphere), such as the theosphere, which is a latter discusion. In short, I don't believe spiritual domains are reducable to mind, any more than I believe mind is reducable to body, any more than I believe body is reducable to atoms. That all there is is material. The mind is one clear example to deny that.

 

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense. Like if someone points at a piece of art and asks "what is that?" I could answer either "it is an oil" or "it is a bridge" and both are correct. Now, those are answers to two very different questions, but it's not obvious whether the person is asking "what medium makes up that picture?" or "what is that picture a representation of?".

[Ouroboros]

 

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense. Like if someone points at a piece of art and asks "what is that?" I could answer either "it is an oil" or "it is a bridge" and both are correct. Now, those are answers to two very different questions, but it's not obvious whether the person is asking "what medium makes up that picture?" or "what is that picture a representation of?".

Good point. And also, to say that "it is" something is not wrong, it's just not complete. Mind is brain, but mind is more than brain. What I mean is that reductionism and materialism are correct, but they're only correct to a certain degree, yet they're not wrong. That's why I find myself being a bit stubborn in accepting criticism of reductionism and materialism since they actually do describe certain, and many, truths (but not all) of reality.

[Antlerman]

The complaint really is the philosophical extension of that to everything being reducable to the physical domains. I don't accept that

Bottom line this for me if you can. Do you believe in an afterlife, i.e., the continuation of your own personal consciousness when your brain dies? If not, then is it fair to say at the end of the day you are ultimately discussing feelings and experiences here and now?

I'm honestly not sure what this question has to do with my statement. The mental domain is here and now, but it's not physical.

 

I think what you are doing is assuming if something is not physical its like some sort a mythical realm of disembodied spirits. That is not even close to how I think. As far as an 'afterlife', I believe all there is is now. One second from now is 'afterlife'. It doesn't exist now. (Escoteric enough for you? ). Do I believe after my physical body dies that my personality will survive as "Keith"? No. However, are you or I really those little entities we identify as Keith or Don? I would say no, in the ultimate sense. I believe conciousness is consciousness, and who I identify as Keith through that will not continue.

 

Try to visualize this as a seamless cloth that here and there are unique patterns of stitching appearing on it. Who you identify as 'you' are one of those patterns. As you die, the stitches of that pattern disolve, but understanding your essential nature was that seamless cloth, you always will be. You always were. So in that sense, you or I never die. Only our bodies and all that mental collection of symbolic objects we identified as uniquely "us" as patterns on that cloth. In fact right now, you and I are that seamless cloth. The illusion is to only see that pattern and the others as little island universes. It is the illusion to see our indiviual patterns we call "me" as all there is to "me".

 

Is this escoteric? Yes. But this is something that the sensory-emperical sciences cannot look into - other than recognizing in part the true interconnected, interdependent nature of everything.

 

I'm contuniually lost in your responses because they are so esoteric and offer nothing concrete that I can wrap my mind around. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Actually, aside from what I just attempted to explain, the rest is not escoteric. It actually is part of the complexity sciences, as well as epistimology. Getting into the spiritual domains can be esoteric.

 

Yes, I'm attempting to reduce here.

Don't confuse reduce with oversimplify. Yes, reductionism is in fact an oversimplication, and that's what I choke on. It fails to explain.

[Antlerman]

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense.

You do realize it's not me who said that? I was quoting Pockets when he said "Mind is brain," [italics his]. I have definetly heard others say this in the explictly stated sense that mind = brain. No distinctions.

 

 

BTW, Hans, again reductionsim and materialism are philosphical assumptions, not to be confused with the practices in science of reducing to the component parts (a valid tool). They are philosophies that reduce all of life itself to the material only, and therefore disallows any other understanding in other domains as valid knowledge. When I use those terms, that is how I use them, unless I make a distinction otherwise.

[Ouroboros]

Don't confuse reduce with oversimplify. Yes, reductionism is in fact an oversimplication, and that's what I choke on. It fails to explain.

I understand better now what you're trying to say.

 

You're not concerned about the method of reduction at all, you're just concerned about when it goes too far and limits its context. For instance, the mind can't be explained by particles and atoms alone. It can't be explained by chemistry only. It can't be explained by the processes in the brain either, but the mind is part of the complex pattern of many things both internally and externally that all join together in what becomes a person's mind. For instance, just the fact that I'm right now typing this text and participating in a discussion is a part of what my mind is, and who I am at this moment, and I wouldn't be this person this moment without that participation of this discussion. Hence, the mind is more than just the keys I'm pressing on my keyboard.

 

Here's the thing with reductionism, in my personal view, is that it's a method of breaking down something complex to lesser complex details. As long as the person doing the disassembly understands that it will remove components from the picture that does have part of the full understanding, and that the disassembly only brings some answers, reduction isn't necessarily bad. It's bad only when someone use it and then make the claim that the few parts they extracted are the only parts that are important and necessary. For instance, water is water. It can be described as H₂O. But it doesn't say everything. If I walk on a frozen lake, or if I swim in it during summer season, it's still the same water. The state of the water describes something more than just the particles that it's made of. How it is used, me skiing, walking on it, swimming in it, also describes a context of how it's experienced. Is it wet? Cold? Warm from the sun? Those are all properties of the "picture" that simple reduction of particles won't give. But still, it doesn't mean that knowing what particles water is made out of is a bad thing in itself.

[Vigile]

I'm honestly not sure what this question has to do with my statement.

 

I'm trying to put what you say in a context I can understand.

 

However, are you or I really those little entities we identify as Keith or Don? I would say no, in the ultimate sense

 

In the ultimate sense, I'm able to see out of Don, not Keith and vice versa.

 

Don't confuse reduce with oversimplify

 

I'm accused of a lot of things, but oversimplification is usually not one of them.

[Ouroboros]

BTW, Hans, again reductionsim and materialism are philosphical assumptions, not to be confused with the practices in science of reducing to the component parts (a valid tool). They are philosophies that reduce all of life itself to the material only, and therefore disallows any other understanding in other domains as valid knowledge. When I use those terms, that is how I use them, unless I make a distinction otherwise.

Ah. That's true.

 

In understanding of those definitions, yes, they're very limited (or should I say, limiting).

 

But you did bring in the thought or idea that breaking down something in it's processes is also a type of reductionism, but I'm not sure that's true to the definition. Neither would it be right to say that looking at a parts interaction with its context and environment a form of reduction.

 

We are part of a system. We interact with others. The process of interaction with our environment and other people make our minds be what they are. It's not only the atoms. Not only the internal processes. But even if we look at all those things, and break down how all those things work, are we reductionists, materialists, or something else?

[Ouroboros]

Certainly I recognize the validity of using reductionism to analyize things. The complaint really is the philosophical extension of that to everything being reducable to the physical domains. I don't accept that. I see non-reducablity in higher domains being valid as well. That is emergentism. There are emergent properties which, even though comprised of lower domains, do not function by the rules of the lower domains.

Agree.

 

This is what I touched on in talking about determinism. Determism looks at the lower domains and claims to be able to explain and predict higher function through them. Its the same thing with behaviorism. "Mind is brain", is a great expression of this sort of philosophical reductionsim.

Well, "determinism" in my opinion is a lot wider than "deterministic only by materialistic view" or "deterministic only by reductionism."

 

You can have a process system or emergent system that is deterministic. That's why I'm a bit confused in the denial of determinism in the context of the other.

 

These domains other philosophers of science has categorized that I find helpful are the physiosphere, the bioshpere, and the noosphere. A big deal is made how that without the brain, mind wouldn't exist. Big whoopie. Without the atoms the body wouldn't exist either. But is this statement true, "The body is atoms" Yes, the body is made up of atoms, but it's biology is biological, not atomic! Same thing with mind. Yes, the mind emerges out of brain, but the mind is the mind. The basic understanding is this, the higher transcends and includes the lower into itself; and additionally, the higher is more complex than the lower, as well as less in span of numbers.

Agree. Totally.

 

The entire universe is full of particles, but there are really, really basic. Beings with higher congitive functions are very, very complex, and are very few in numbers compared to particles or atoms. The other rule is this, that if you destroy the higher, you leave the lower in tact, but if you destroy the lower, you also destroy the higher - no matter what it is. So the argument "If you destroy the brain you destroy the mind" does not at all prove that "the mind is brain", it means that it is higher than brain and if you destroy the lower you take the higher with it. Example, destroy all atoms and everything higher than it goes too. But that does not at all mean that the higher can be understood by looking only at the lower.

Correct.

 

And it is also theoretically possible to replace all those atoms in someone's mind and continue that person's mind. The mind is the result of the process more than the individual particles. As far as we know at least. Perhaps this is where theory splits from fiction. Perhaps specific particles belong to certain consciousness and identities?

 

I'm not going there yet, but you can add higher domains than mind (the noosphere), such as the theosphere, which is a latter discusion. In short, I don't believe spiritual domains are reducable to mind, any more than I believe mind is reducable to body, any more than I believe body is reducable to atoms. That all there is is material. The mind is one clear example to deny that.

Ok.

 

I'm out of time here, but I'll quickly add that science is already using the mental domains in analyzing the objective physical world. This is a different process that mind to mind. In the emperic-analytic sciences you have mind to material (symbolic reality to physical reality). In the hermenutic sciences you have mind to mind (symbolic reality to symbolic reality).

 

I think we need to have a discussion of what excatly science is and how it works. I'll suggest there is a difference between an emperical approach and traditional empericism itself. What people call science, is the sensory world domain, mind to materal. That is empericism in a narrow sense, not a broader sense which allows for truth verification in the higher domains. Have to run....

Good points. I'll gestate on that input.

[Antlerman]

However, are you or I really those little entities we identify as Keith or Don? I would say no, in the ultimate sense

 

In the ultimate sense, I'm able to see out of Don, not Keith and vice versa.

Oh, but you are! It's part of your cognitive stages of development that lets you put your mind into the mind of another. It's the clasic test of the three-mountains. Only children at a certain stage of development can see from the dolls point of view by putting themselves outside their own perceptions from their own two eyes into anothers.

 

But more than that, yes you can through the interaction of your symbol sets with my symbol sets. My symbols are my way of putting my mind into yours. They interact with your symbols and together that interaction creates a whole new set of symbols we interact with each through! Quite fanstastic actually. None of it is physical, BTW, except for the various mediums of communication we use, such as printed letters, spoken words, language structures, etc.

 

Now to get really escoteric for you, in the higher domains of consciousness there actually can be communication beyond symbol sets. Now we're getting into that seamless cloth fabric space. You recall I made a distinction between mind to material in the emperic-analytic sciences, and how that is different than mind to mind? Mind to spiritual domains is another way of knowing, it too uses symbols but in a much more esoteric manner than mind to mind. Then there is spirit to spirit knowing, and that is beyond all symbols into direct apprehension. That is Gnoticism. Direct knowing. That's the seamless cloth knowing itself and all those upon it.

 

Don't confuse reduce with oversimplify

 

I'm accused of a lot of things, but oversimplification is usually not one of them.

I'm saying that what I hear of reductionism - in the philosophical sense I'm addressing - is an oversimplication of matters. I wasn't meaning to accuse you of that. I just say you are unfamilar with this and these concepts. I can try to break it down more if we get to specific points.

[VacuumFlux]

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense.

You do realize it's not me who said that? I was quoting Pockets when he said "Mind is brain," [italics his]. I have definetly heard others say this in the explictly stated sense that mind = brain. No distinctions.

 

Yes, I did realize that. What I meant to express was surprise that this was more than a semantics disagreement, because I had assumed everyone who says "mind is brain" means "mind is composed out of the medium of brain" and thought I agreed with them.

[badpuppy]

@Antlerman This might interest you... Stephen King when talking about the magic of writing said that he likened writing to telepathy. He creates images with his words and the reader later reads them and the images appear in their mind.

[Yrth]

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense.

You do realize it's not me who said that? I was quoting Pockets when he said "Mind is brain," [italics his]. I have definetly heard others say this in the explictly stated sense that mind = brain. No distinctions.

 

Yes, I did realize that. What I meant to express was surprise that this was more than a semantics disagreement, because I had assumed everyone who says "mind is brain" means "mind is composed out of the medium of brain" and thought I agreed with them.

*gets home from work*

 

Actually, Tom Stoppard said that in his play Rock n Roll. It's wrapped in quotes for a reason. And the character didn't mean it literally, he meant it the way VacuumFlux understood it.

 

Stoppard and the power chords of revolution

By JERRY TALLMER

The human brain, says tough old pragmatic Max Morrow in Tom Stoppard’s glowing “Rock ’n’ Roll,” is a kind of pinball machine. “If it wasn’t for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium, but it would sit there, going: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ ”

Well, I don’t know what Tom Stoppard’s brain is made of, but it isn’t beer cans. And it never stops thinking. Collecting. Connecting. Comparing. Dramatizing.

etc

[Legion]

I find myself agreeing with everything you said other than the definition of "is". I guess it's just never occurred to me that anyone could say that the "mind is brain" and mean it in a completely reductionistic sense.

You do realize it's not me who said that? I was quoting Pockets when he said "Mind is brain," [italics his]. I have definetly heard others say this in the explictly stated sense that mind = brain. No distinctions.

 

Yes, I did realize that. What I meant to express was surprise that this was more than a semantics disagreement, because I had assumed everyone who says "mind is brain" means "mind is composed out of the medium of brain" and thought I agreed with them.

Would we say that life is composed out of the medium of organism? I don't know.

 

If we can validly say that organism realizes life then can we also say that brain realizes mind?

 

I'll repeat it until I'm blue in the face. I am working from the assumption that the following analogy has depth. Mind is to brain as life is to organism. Unless someone can articulate why that is a poor analogy I will continue to look at life/organism and mind/brain using it.

 

So please, someone challenge the analogy.

[Yrth]

What does this have to do with what I illustrated? You don't follow this? No wonder you think mind=brain. How is what I am saying suggest your thought literally exists outside your mind, in the sense of some disembodied entity? I'm talking about the non-material nature of the domain of mind. That symbolic reality you experience is not physical. When was the last time you saw a value walking around outside in the physical world?

When I say the world is material, that actually includes what your talking about. It's understood as rejecting supernatural fluff, not concepts and ideas. Who do you know that actually disputes "the immaterial" as you are describing it.

 

"Her mind is her brain. The brain is a biological machine for thinking. If it wasn't for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of -- beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium but it would sit there, going, 'I think, therefore, I am.'"

Bald assertions. 'The mind is her brain' is your opinion, nothing more. An opinion, in my opinion, that falls flat facing the facts. Yes, of course the brain is a biological machine for thinking. No dispute. But the domain of mind is not physical. It is not biological. It is a mental reality that can only be understood within the mental domain itself. You can no more understand Hamlet through science than you can know me by studying my brain. You have to engage your mind in interpretation of mind.

 

You ask how your thought exists outside yours? Through the use of non-physical symbolism, taking your thought and putting it into my head. Exactly what is happening through the use of all these letters in what I am typing from my mind to yours. Of course, how well that is received and interpreted is a factor of knowledge, history, understanding, language abilities, and a very, very long list of factors. Clearly what I said before failed to enter your mind a successfully as I hoped.

 

BTW, Is your body atoms? The mind is brain in the same way the body is atoms. You don't understand your body through looking at atoms, do you??

All of this is irrelevant because no one, not even the character who I quoted, was saying that mind = brain. What he was saying is that in the end, it all comes down to brain matter.

 

Do you react negatively to those who can't see the world as strictly material or reducible to the material?

I guess it depends. I react negatively when people cite ghosts when the temperature in the room drops or when the cat bolts under the bed; when people pray to a god and then interpret what happens next as the answer; when people say that everything happens for a reason; and when constantine thinks he sees a cross in the clouds and decides an entire empire should convert. These are the kinds of things I'm not even ok with hearing at anything more than a polite distance of, say, brief acquaintance. Otherwise, I may be prone to an involuntary eye roll.

What on earth does anything I am saying have to do with ghosts? Nothing. Strawman.

I was just trying to answer the bolded question honestly. This paragraph isn't supposed to be an argument for or against anything, merely a description of my own reactions.

[Legion]

Stoppard and the power chords of revolution

By JERRY TALLMER

The human brain, says tough old pragmatic Max Morrow in Tom Stoppard’s glowing “Rock ’n’ Roll,” is a kind of pinball machine. “If it wasn’t for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium, but it would sit there, going: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ ”

Well, I don’t know what Tom Stoppard’s brain is made of, but it isn’t beer cans. And it never stops thinking. Collecting. Connecting. Comparing. Dramatizing.

I question the value of this, frankly. This is a review of a play for crying out loud. We're in the Coliseum. Are there no standards?

[Yrth]

"Her mind is her brain. The brain is a biological machine for thinking. If it wasn't for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of -- beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium but it would sit there, going, 'I think, therefore, I am.'"

I don't believe the mind is the brain and I also don't believe you can prove it. It's merely an assertion from your materialistic assumption. I eagerly await your beer can brain. Please let me know when it is ready and I can have a rational conversation with it and observe its emotional state.

I guess it depends. I react negatively when people cite ghosts when the temperature in the room drops or when the cat bolts under the bed; when people pray to a god and then interpret what happens next as the answer; when people say that everything happens for a reason; and when constantine thinks he sees a cross in the clouds and decides an entire empire should convert. These are the kinds of things I'm not even ok with hearing at anything more than a polite distance of, say, brief acquaintance. Otherwise, I may be prone to an involuntary eye roll.

I don't believe in ghosts.

I also can't say that I really appreciate my view being reduced to "ghosts". Great philosophers have asked these questions. Some have come to the POV I have, others have come to other POV's, including the materialistic assumption, but to behave as if it's childish to hold a different point of view about a question that has been seriously considered by philosophers throughout the ages indicates to me that for all the science you may know, you don't seem to have supplemented it with much philosophical understanding, which seems a little unbalanced to me.

I also don't "pray" to "god".

Materialists think everything happens for a reason. It's called determinism.

My name isn't Constantine. I don't believe he saw a cross in those clouds, anyway. I think it's far more likely he saw a brilliant way to control and terrorize people and used it.

Oh dear! Not an eye roll. I'm sorry you must suffer so. eye rolling can be such a bother.

Maybe sarcasm isn't helpful here, but you aren't the only one who gets frustrated by these sorts of exchanges. The difference is... my issue isn't your materialism, it's your smug certainty that you are "right".

None of my response was directed at you, I was just responding to Antlerman. I happen to know a woman who believes in ghosts and is always mentioning them. The other stuff is my personal experiences with people and ideas. You see? It's not about you. At all.

As with the dreaming apple, all you have to do is cut open the brain to watch the mind burst into nothing. Dependency = my point.

Once again, http://en.wikipedia....God_of_the_gaps

I know you were responding to Antlerman, but earlier in your post you said "her mind IS her brain". If i wasn't the "her" you were referring to, then I apologize for the assumption that I was. You had just been carrying on a conversation with me and basically writing me off as some little weirdo. I mean... I could rehash the whole thing but why bother? It was at that point in the conversation that Antlerman arrived on the scene, replying to comments you had made directly to me. I think it should be obvious why I thought you were referring to me. Either way, I don't think you were referring to "just me", but merely that you lumped me in with "all the crazy people who believe weird shit."

Even if you were thinking of some woman you know who believes in ghosts... (I'm not prepared to say they don't exist, just that they aren't part of my personal belief. I could be wrong about the phenomena)... you WERE lumping me and my views in with that. Because all of this flowed from a few exchanges you and I had.So I dunno, to me it feels like you're just shifting things around to come out blameless. It comes off as a little disingenuous to me.

BP,

I’m sorry for the confusion. I lifted the quote beginning with “her mind is her brain” from Tom Stoppard’s play Rock’n’Roll. I actually saw the NYC production and that line made a lasting impression. It always flares up in these types of discussions.

I really was not taking digs at you or anyone in particular, I was just trying to answer the question. Those ideas do cause me to react negatively, and its by them or extended through them that I care about this subject at all.

Because this was a pivotal aspect of my deconversion. IMO, it’s the one internally valid way to exit – or at least, it’s the most internally valid. Otherwise I was doomed to be a reluctant theist because I couldn’t prove the negative. That is why this matters so much.

After all, so what if my personal experience would have me believe differently? I am commanded to believe. A personal disagreement is subordinate to biblical / communal / divine authority. Also, tons of people have crazily varied experiential understandings, and they can’t all be right – in fact, most if not all must be wrong – so what would make mine valid or even trustworthy as a reason to leave? If there’s no real reason to believe one thing over another, how could you leave Christianity without rebelling? You couldn’t, you’d end up the arbiter of your own reality.

 

I don't believe in ghosts.

I also can't say that I really appreciate my view being reduced to "ghosts".

How dare you take that superior tone of voice toward the ghost hypothesis. Don't you have any assumptions of your own? What makes your silly beliefs superior to theirs?! Just respect their beliefs, goddammit!

When you get going on this subject, bp, what I hear is a defense of Christianity. "You can't prove life-is-a-dream/god isn't true / doesn't exist, so that makes you arrogant to think that you're right." That has 0 mileage with me, ok, in all its forms, not just when deployed in defense of the christian religion. That idea can go fuck itself in a back room, its caused so much wasted time and suffering I really won't mind its passing.

Imo, Spinoza should have stuck to grinding glass.

I actually didn't take a "superior tone" toward the ghost hypothesis. I stated that i didn't believe in them. You were lumping a lot of thoughts together in this discussion to make it seem as if everyone who isn't a materialist thinks the same way. (And if you weren't doing that, then what was your point in bringing up ghosts in the first place? This thread isn't about ghosts. Just because you know a lady who believes in ghosts doesn't actually make that particularly relevant to the idea that the world might not be as "material" and "mechanistic" as you think.)

Me saying I personally don't believe in ghosts is not equivalent to deriding those who do. I also have stated before that just because I don't believe in them doesn't mean they aren't real. (I've also stated pure materialism could be true. I just don't personally think that it is.) My reasons for not believing in ghosts are not purely logical and I admit there is an emotional component to my disbelief... i.e. I do not want to have to deal with them in my reality. There is too much in this world to deal with as it is without introducing ghosts and goblins into the mix. But that doesn't make them "automatically not real" whether I personally believe in them or not.

Alright I see that now. My mistake.

It feels very much like you can't make that distinction. As if you feel you are inferfacing with reality "as it is", rather than just your perception of it. Might i suggest reading some of Immanuel Kant's thoughts on this subject.

And of course I have assumptions of my own. My point is that we ALL have assumptions. Including materialists. Assumptions are not facts. I recognize that. Do you?

I think it's disingenuous to compare this to a defense of Christianity. I'm not actually "defending" anything but my right to have my own honest perceptions about life... something many materialists seem to feel only they have a right to since of course... they are "right". (If it walks like dogmatism and quacks like dogmatism....)

It IS arrogant to think you can't be wrong. On ANY subject. It's arrogant when a Christian does it, when a Buddhist does it, and when an Atheist does it. it's arrogant when ANYBODY does it. It's not that you can't think you're right, it's that I haven't seen any evidence you think there is even the slimmest possibility you could be wrong. If I've misread your intent, then I apologize, but you seem fairly dogmatic to me with regards to views that aren't materialistic.

Like what? I don’t post often anymore. Can’t just throw that out there. I also don’t generally post equivocal reactions, so maybe that would seem ‘dogmatic’ after a while, I’m not sure. The last thing I really posted on was the cop thread. I’ll let you name something though… don’t want that cop thread in here. The forum might implode.

Regarding the Christianity comparison: you don’t see the similarity? I am telling you, this whole argument is exactly what kept me in the non-fundy fold for years when I should have been out. All assumptions are on equal footing; everyone is making assumptions; Christianity is just as valid as anything else, at the very least. It is THE apologetics argument that has caused me the most harm.

I left that behind when I shifted to an evidence/conclusion frame of mind. I don’t actually think I am assuming anything, I think I’m making reasonable conclusions. Yeah, I could be wrong, there could be lovecraftian nightmares leeching hope from my optical nerves – why should I think that? And why should anyone take me seriously if I did? To BE NICE?

ps. Kant can suck an egg. No one ever mentions his volumes of Christian apologetics. Mediated reality, yeah yeah. I do get it. But I think its reasonable to conclude I’m ‘interfacing’ (dirty word, that) with reality as it really is. That’s the thought that started this series of contributions.

[Yrth]

Stoppard and the power chords of revolution

By JERRY TALLMER

The human brain, says tough old pragmatic Max Morrow in Tom Stoppard’s glowing “Rock ’n’ Roll,” is a kind of pinball machine. “If it wasn’t for the merely technical problem of understanding how it works, we could make one out of beer cans. It would be the size of a stadium, but it would sit there, going: ‘I think, therefore I am.’ ”

Well, I don’t know what Tom Stoppard’s brain is made of, but it isn’t beer cans. And it never stops thinking. Collecting. Connecting. Comparing. Dramatizing.

 

I question the value of this, frankly. This is a review of a play for crying out loud. We're in the Coliseum. Are there no standards?

We are? whoops.

[Deva]

Bottom line this for me if you can. Do you believe in an afterlife, i.e., the continuation of your own personal consciousness when your brain dies? If not, then is it fair to say at the end of the day you are ultimately discussing feelings and experiences here and now?

 

Viglie, I have to commend you for getting to the root of the issue.

[Legion]

An observation made about the brain. In the early stages of embryonic development the cells differentiate into three layers called the endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. The outermost layers of skin and the central nervous system are formed from ectodermal tissue. The central nervous system is formed from a neural fold in the developing embryo. It curls up on itself as can be seen in ths picture.

 

 

This is very suggestive to me, because it seems inescable to conclude that the brain (central nervous system), just as the outermost layers of skin, specializes in environment/body interactions.

 

Okay so that's the brain, what about the mind? Well, I think all minds are anticipatory. Meaning that they exert controls on the body which are guided by models. This seems evident to me from introspection.

 

So here's a few collected suggestions...

 

Brain - an organ which specializes in environment/body interactions

Mind - anticipatory, model guided self-control

[badpuppy]

@Pockets: gotcha, fair enough re: "her mind is her brain". I wasn't aware of that reference.

 

Fair enough re: why you feel as you do about things.

 

But we are all the arbiter of our own reality. We all make an assumption, we all take some kind of authority... be it the bible, science, or our own experience. There is no escaping living in a world of our own perception and not being able to be an objective witness to anything. It's not part of the nature of being human. Knowing that, I'm free to explore my actual views about things and my actual experiences rather than replace one authority outside me with another.

 

There is no authority outside me for my own experience.

 

re: your personal "dogmatism", that's just how you came off to me in this thread. I understand your position better now.

 

re: apologetics... apologetics is defending something, presumably with the purpose of convincing someone else. All I've defended is my right to interpret my own experience rather than have it interpreted for me by someone who "knows better" "for my own good". And while it might not be the intention, very often when dealing with materialistic types, that's how I feel I'm being treated. As if I'm not permitted to interpret my own experiences and define my own worldview without being stereotyped in some way.

 

If you're interfacing with "real reality" then what are dolphins interfacing with? They perceive with sonar, and as a result perceive an entirely different world from you and I? Which one of you is "right"?

[Antlerman]

If you're interfacing with "real reality" then what are dolphins interfacing with? They perceive with sonar, and as a result perceive an entirely different world from you and I? Which one of you is "right"?

That's a wonderful analogy that makes the point quickly. I'm going to use that myself now. I always try to illustrate how to child the world they experience is in fact reality to them equally as much as the world of an adult is to them, even though through the eyes of the adult the child doesn't 'know reality yet'. It's all about how we interface with the world. I like the dolphin analogy because that is a very different experience of reality than any human could hope to relate to, yet we connect to them as intelligent animals, unlike saying the world of a rat's reality.

 

So that leads to what I said before, all our processed ideas of reality are in fact truth, but partial truths, not exclusive truth, not absolute Truth. To me, absolute Truth embraces all partial truths and is itself no single truth. It is Truth itself, like you would say Life itself. Everything else is reflections of that. I think the more we recognize that, the greater our understanding of what the nature of Truth itself is, and the higher and deeper our vantage point on the whole affair is. Aperspectival pluralism. A wonderful word.