Mind and Body?

[tucker58]

Everybody seems to agree that a mind cannot exist without a body.

And there seems to be two bodies that a mind can exist in, "A spirit body", and "A physical body."

Some folks maintain that the spirit body is helpful when one wants to maintain a physical body .

What is the relationship between the mind and the spirit body and the physical body?

anybody?

love,

tuck

 

[rockaction]

Well, there is no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of the brain. In fact, modern neuroscience pretty much has established that the mind is a product of the electrical activity of the brain. As hard as that is to conceptualize, it's what the evidence is saying currently.

Our brains evolved to cope with our surroundings, and everything we experience through our senses is merely an interpretation the brain makes of sensory information. I think evolutionary psychology and neuroscience really need to be brought into discussions like these - because oftentimes people forget about them in their musings of the subject.

As far as the "spirit body" having an influence on the "physical body"...well, I don't think there is a "spirit body". But psychology is very important and can have a large influence on physiology, which is worth discussing of course.

 

[Look Up]

Intriguing implications of modern neuroscience aside, you seem to be using the language of Mormonism, and hence assume Mormon doctrine. Is that correct? Otherwise as a Protestant, I can't quite make sense of some of your vocabulary--or perhaps the way you use some words is different from the way I understand them.

 

[tucker58]

Well, there is no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of the brain. In fact, modern neuroscience pretty much has established that the mind is a product of the electrical activity of the brain. As hard as that is to conceptualize, it's what the evidence is saying currently.

Our brains evolved to cope with our surroundings, and everything we experience through our senses is merely an interpretation the brain makes of sensory information. I think evolutionary psychology and neuroscience really need to be brought into discussions like these - because oftentimes people forget about them in their musings of the subject.

As far as the "spirit body" having an influence on the "physical body"...well, I don't think there is a "spirit body". But psychology is very important and can have a large influence on physiology, which is worth discussing of course.

Your screen name is "Rockaction", as a rock in action, your post is interesting.

First, there is actually scientific evidence that some mediums can actually visit with the "spirit world" (and the dead) . And yes, most mediums are bunk.

Second, all living things create an energy field as a result of their biological processes. The question is, "Does this energy field exist after the death of the living organism?"

You say that it don't . There is scientific evidence that it does, or maybe a mind can exist without a spirit or a physical body and still effect things? You Rock are saying that there is no spirit world. And maybe no mind after death.

Your approach is interesting Rockaction And it has been used by others and is not unique.

love,

tuck

 

[rockaction]

Your screen name is "Rockaction", as a rock in action, your post is interesting.

My screen name is music-related. Check it out!

First, there is actually scientific evidence that some mediums can actually visit with the "spirit world" . And yes, most mediums are bunk.

I have never heard this before and am quite skeptical. Can you post a link?

Second, all living things create an energy field as a result of their biological processes. The question is, "Does this energy field exist after the death of the living organism?"

You say that it don't . There is scientific evidence that it does, or maybe a mind can exist without a spirit or a physical body and effect thing? You Rock are saying that there is no spirit world. And maybe no mind after death.

I won't pretend to know for certain if there is no life after death. I just have no evidence that there is, and would rather live my life assuming there isn't (and be pleasantly surprised if there is!)

As far as your energy theory...well, I have not heard anything about this energy field and I have a degree in Molecular Biology. Can you post the pertinent research that supports this idea?

Your approach is interesting Rockaction And it has been used by others and is not unique.

love,

tuck

Yeah, not unique, but it fits reality as best as it can.

 

[Chesterton]

The Stooges' Ron Asheton = "Rock Action!" (Died last year. )

 

[Look Up]

See a New Scientist article "You Won't Find Consciousness in the Brain" by atheist Ray Tallis, posted 7 Jan. 2010. Sorry, I am not allowed to post links and one can no longer read the full article without subscribing. Also see the article on him in the site theness ("Ray Tallis on Consciousness").

 

[Eudaimonist]

What is the relationship between the mind and the spirit body and the physical body?tuck

I believe we have only one "body", and its physicality and mentality are two different aspects of this single body.

Basically, my view is a combination of dual-aspect theory and emergentism. Given a body that functions in certain ways, mind emerges as a new property and aspect of that body.

A Dual-Aspect Approach to the Mind-Body Problem

This Dual-Aspect theory holds that a so-called mental process, and the physical process of the brain with which it is intimately associated, are not two distinct processes, but rather are two aspects of one and the same brain process. The two aspects of that brain process are the mental aspect and the physical (electro-chemical) aspect.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Everybody seems to agree that a mind cannot exist without a body.

But the RCC teaches, I think, that God is a spirit who became man, but that body was not essential for God to have mental capacity.
Also, ask yourself do plants have "bodies" as some people believe in plant consciousness.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Also, ask yourself do plants have "bodies" as some people believe in plant consciousness.

I don't believe in plant consciousness, but plants certainly have bodies.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[marlowe007]

Well, there is no evidence that consciousness can exist outside of the brain. In fact, modern neuroscience pretty much has established that the mind is a product of the electrical activity of the brain. As hard as that is to conceptualize, it's what the evidence is saying currently.

The brain is more of a read-write head between the body and the soul, or nonlocal consciousness. Your memory, for example, is not stored in your brain, merely written by it and retrieved by it.

What is it written on? Well, let's do the mind/body problem first, and then we'll move on to what is "after physics".

One can make a television set produce distorted images by applying a magnetic field to the screen, but the actors and sets whose images are thereby distorted, are not themselves affected in any way. I LOVE LUCY is not an "epiphenomenon" of my tv set.

You should look at the work Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are doing. Their theories of non-local consciousness mediated by the microtubulin network, which is sensitive to quantum mechanical effects, is currently an unpopular but still major contender for solution to the "mind/body" problem.

Physicalistic and epiphenomalist theories do not address the 'hard problem' of consciousness: qualia.

 

[Eudaimonist]

You should look at the work Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff are doing. Their theories of non-local consciousness mediated by the microtubulin network, which is sensitive to quantum mechanical effects, is currently an unpopular but still major contender for solution to the "mind/body" problem.

Physicalistic and epiphenomalist theories do not address the 'hard problem' of consciousness: qualia.

I don't see how the "non-local" model of consciousness does any better with qualia.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[tucker58]

But the RCC teaches, I think, that God is a spirit who became man, but that body was not essential for God to have mental capacity.
Also, ask yourself do plants have "bodies" as some people believe in plant consciousness.

Hi GS All living things create an energy field. Even plants. These energy fields can be photographed. I and others have the ability to see and feel these energy fields that living things create.

and also when ever anyone posts on a message board they leave an imprint of their energy field that was them at the time that they posted along with their words.

Feelings and emotions also create energy fields. These energy fields have the ability to effect others. Music as one example can create a vibration that effects these energy fields . as an example of that, all mega hits in music contain in them the Om vibration. this vibration is either in the singers voice, the bass, or the drums or all three. That vibration stimulates the "heart center" and one loves that music. There are also frequencies that stimulate the adrenals and the protein life center (the pituitary gland).

The entertainment industry is based on the ability of the audience to feel and be effected by the energy vibrations that the entertainer radiates. And some people are just noisier than others when it comes to generating these vibrations. These people are called the "beautiful people" and the camera loves them.

Our minds have the ability to stimulate the areas that give off these energy fields, but most of the time it is not done on purpose. When you are happy you radiate energy from certain areas and when you are not happy your don't. And if you are unhappy too long you get sick and die because these areas are not being activated.

These vibrational fields are sometimes called spirit. That person has spirit or that person is beautiful. What you put thought into lights up and what lights up attracts the eye. Actually almost any woman can tell you what not to place thought into around men .

love you,

tuck

 

[Look Up]

We do not fully understand what in a human generates self-awareness, volition, imagination, or abstract logic and the acceptance of certain premises. We have certain information about the number and function of nerve cells and synapses in the brain, models of logic circuits, and an association between various regions of the brain and bodily functions in and outside the brain (e.g., somehow emotions strengthen or weaken the immune system), but mystery remains.

Theories may extrapolate from limited evidence. Even wholly naturalistic explanations for the mysteries--for example of self-awareness--rely at points on faith in something beyond evidence.

My theory is that there is a brain-transcendent aspect of human existence that is both effected by the brain/body and also influences it (humans appear to be unified entities with different parts), but in some way hierarchically superior. To suggest that biochemical causes and random or unexpected electro-chemical and physical events wholly cause self-awareness, volition, and imagination is less plausible to me than belief in the mystery of a God-created soul or spirit intimately attached to a body-with-brain, as the Bible and much Christian tradition arguably affirms.

Of course this is not to suggest that further investigation is pointless, but rather in part that there is a sacredness to human existence beyond that of a complex bio-chemical machine. I am suggesting that human existence is endowed with actual rather than illusory or merely functional meaning.

Otherwise at the end of the day, what is the point of argument and investigation? Is self-awareness, volition, moral judgment etc. merely a present effect of some chain of inanimate causes (much as they may come into play too), as if in the aggregate, the chain itself was self-causing (which would seem to require atheism to collapse into a form of pantheism, thus coming full circle back to some sort of actual and sacred meaning)?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I don't even know what a physical explanation of consciousness would look like.

 

[tucker58]

We do not fully understand what in a human generates self-awareness, volition, imagination, or abstract logic and the acceptance of certain premises. We have certain information about the number and function of nerve cells and synapses in the brain, models of logic circuits, and an association between various regions of the brain and bodily functions in and outside the brain (e.g., somehow emotions strengthen or weaken the immune system), but mystery remains.

Theories may extrapolate from limited evidence. Even wholly naturalistic explanations for the mysteries--for example of self-awareness--rely at points on faith in something beyond evidence.

My theory is that there is a brain-transcendent aspect of human existence that is both effected by the brain/body and also influences it (humans appear to be unified entities with different parts), but in some way hierarchically superior. To suggest that biochemical causes and random or unexpected electro-chemical and physical events wholly cause self-awareness, volition, and imagination is less plausible to me than belief in the mystery of a God-created soul or spirit intimately attached to a body-with-brain, as the Bible and much Christian tradition arguably affirms.

Of course this is not to suggest that further investigation is pointless, but rather in part that there is a sacredness to human existence beyond that of a complex bio-chemical machine. I am suggesting that human existence is endowed with actual rather than illusory or merely functional meaning.

Otherwise at the end of the day, what is the point of argument and investigation? Is self-awareness, volition, moral judgment etc. merely a present effect of some chain of inanimate causes (much as they may come into play too), as if in the aggregate, the chain itself was self-causing (which would seem to require atheism to collapse into a form of pantheism, thus coming full circle back to some sort of actual and sacred meaning)?

Interesting point Look Up. "Self aware" means that you are aware that you are an individual that is separate from all other individuals. Now technically we are just very sophisticated biological computers. If we take the DNA molecule we find that it is a very sophisticated biological computer. And that this DNA computer is a bigger computer than anything we have as a computer in today's world all by itself. We have and are made up of billions of the DNA computers. These computers all work together and communicate with each other. In harmony if one is a normal healthy human being or animal. So we carry a lot of computer mind mass in our bodies. Computer mind mass is what is required to achieve "self awareness."

Science (not all science) thinks that the brain is the computer, but it is not. The brain is an amplifier that allows the very small to interact with the very large and the outside world. The human mind is actually in the DNA molecule. And the interesting thing is that the DNA computer uses minute radio frequencies to communicate with it's self and it's others and as a mass with the brain. These minute radio frequency vibrations as a mass are what the energy fields that are inside the body and around the body are composed of.

Love,

tuck

 

[Eudaimonist]

I don't even know what a physical explanation of consciousness would look like.

I know less what a non-physical explanation of consciousness would look like. At least a physical explanation would look like something, even if it involved quantum non-locality or other quantum weirdness, which would at least be physical.

A non-physical explanation doesn't actually solve anything. It just sweeps all of the problems under the rug with a vague sense that some kind of magic is taking place.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[GrowingSmaller]

The human mind is actually in the DNA molecule.

The proof being?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

A non-physical explanation doesn't actually solve anything. It just sweeps all of the problems under the rug with a vague sense that some kind of magic is taking place.



Mark

Tu quoque, more or less. What does dual aspect theory say except "lets admit conventinal physicalism fails, so we'll propose another aspect which magically gets us out of jail"?

 

[Eudaimonist]

Tu quoque, more or less. What does dual aspect theory say except "lets admit conventinal physicalism fails, so we'll propose another aspect which magically gets us out of jail"?

And that is a strawman, more or less.

Keep in mind these quotes:

"But if, in fact, the Dual-Aspect theory is correct, mental processes and mind are not processes and process-complexes at all, distinct from the physical brain processes and complexes of such processes. They instead are one and the same as the physical processes and process-complexes."

Also: "Conclusions that once seemed absurd or wrongheaded now take on a new light, in view of the thesis that a mental process and a physical brain process are actually both merely aspects of one brain process."

There is no "magic" going on here. It is not an appeal to a ghost in the machine, or some extra ingredient than the functioning of the brain.

Rather, dual-aspect theory offers a different and potentially more persuasive philosophical perspective. There are real problems of explanation that can be solved in this way. And considering that the brain can be studied, this perspective is something that can bear fruit, unlike with a purely non-physical explanation.



eudaimonia,

Mark