Mind-Body Problem?

[Philosoph]

"Our experience is not the physical reactions of our brain"

Hmmmm......interesting. In spite of what you might think, experience does take place in the brain. When you see something, it's your brain that actually "sees" it, in that it is your brain which processes the sensory input. A person who's brain isn't functioning does not continue to "see."

If I feel a pain in my hand, science has shown that the pain sensation isn't processed in my hand, it's processed in my brain, regardless of what I think. Experience takes place in the hand.

A question for you if I may?

If you say experience doesn't take place in the brain, in what realm does it take place? What are the limits of this place, what parameters exist there, if any?

 

[Lifesaver]

"Our experience is not the physical reactions of our brain"

Hmmmm......interesting. In spite of what you might think, experience does take place in the brain. When you see something, it's your brain that actually "sees" it, in that it is your brain which processes the sensory input. A person who's brain isn't functioning does not continue to "see."

Again, I know that the brain processes whatever our sensory neurons (in they eye, tongue, etc) capture.
But you can't possibly say that such and such neuron synapses are your experience. As some materialists think, you can say that your mind and all that goes in it are products of the reactions in your brain.

Returning to the red ball (or anything you are currently seeing) example: whenever you look at it, certain neurons act in a certain way. The image you see (your experience), however, is not these neurons. It might be created by them.
Someone who dissects your brain while you see the red ball won't see it. True, the neurons may carry the same information in another language, which is translated into an image (like the 0s and 1s in the HD are translated into points of light). The result of this translation, though, exists nowhere in the physical world, but only in viewer's mind.

To make this more obvious, the example of the bat comes in hand:
We can dissect its brains and conclude that, through echo-location (sp?), the bat perceives a pillar on his way. We have no idea, however, of the bat's experience of this pillar, since we don't even have the sense required to it. The bat's experience is not in its brain, though it might be generated there.

If I feel a pain in my hand, science has shown that the pain sensation isn't processed in my hand, it's processed in my brain, regardless of what I think. Experience takes place in the hand.

It doesn't follow from the fact that whatever happens to your hand is processed by your brain that the synapses are the experience, or that the brain IS the mind.

If you say experience doesn't take place in the brain, in what realm does it take place? What are the limits of this place, what parameters exist there, if any?

One that is completely metaphysical (but it certainly has relations of cause and effect with the physical realm- the brain).
Like Nagel and McGinn, I don't think our mind has the capability to properly understand itself (it probably has the capability to understand the brain, though), so I don't know what its limits are (except this one), nor its parameters. That doesn't mean it doesn't have them. Actually, it's obvious that it does have limits and parameters; I don't feel confident to name any of them, and I don't think anyone will ever be able to name them all.

 

[professor frink]

The result of this translation, though, exists nowhere in the physical world, but only in viewer's mind.

This isn't yet known. People are studying it, but as yet, not conclusions have been drawn.

 

[Lifesaver]

I don't think so, Frink. We know for a fact that this image doesn't exist in the physical world, or else we'd see it. It is definately not there.

 

[professor frink]

I don't think so, Frink. We know for a fact that this image doesn't exist in the physical world, or else we'd see it. It is definately not there.

Do you presume to know more about how the brain processes images than the neurophysiologists who are studying it? They don't know they answer yet, so if you know something the rest of the world knows, please share it.

 

[Philosoft]

I don't think so, Frink. We know for a fact that this image doesn't exist in the physical world, or else we'd see it. It is definately not there.

What are you talking about? We do see the image. Just because a neuroscientist can't pick it out on a PET-scan doesn't mean there's no physical pattern present.

 

[Lifesaver]

Your experience exists only to you and it is completely unreachable. Your personal experience is not physically inside your brain, though the reactions that cause it are.

Do you agree with this?

 

[professor frink]

Your experience exists only to you and it is completely unreachable.

No I do not agree.

Your personal experience is not physically inside your brain, though the reactions that cause it are.

This is not yet well understood so I will reserve judgement.

 

[Lifesaver]

Well, how do you think one can have direct contact with another one's experiences?

 

[Philosoft]

Your experience exists only to you and it is completely unreachable. Your personal experience is not physically inside your brain, though the reactions that cause it are.

Do you agree with this?

No. As I said before, there are plausible alternatives - rhodopsin activation patterns, quantum consciousness, etc.

 

[Lifesaver]

Okay, these are plausible alternatives. I don't even know the other two you cited, but I'm glad you acknowldge that no theory has concluded the matter once and for all.

Let's wait for Philosoph's reply to all this.
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ooh! It's Oscar night! And Brazil's got a shot in the hot categories!

 

[Philosoph]

Lifesaver, please read what I have written and please read what I will write.

I believe I said many times that "minds are biological products of brains." Let me say it again so that you can actually get it this time. "Minds are biological products of brains." So you say "It doesn't follow from the fact that...the brain IS the mind." Funny that you should claim that I said that "the brain IS the mind" seeing as how I never said that, because, I don't believe that. What I do believe is that "minds are biological products of brains." See the difference. My computer printer can print something (which would be a product of the printer) and have what it prints not be the same thing as it. Or for example babies are the products of sperm and an egg, yet aren't either of those two things. More generally they are the products of parents, but that baby is still distinct from the parents. So like I said, "minds are biological products of brains."

Another question for you then. We'll assume that our minds are the things that create our consiousness. That's a fair assumption right (or is conciousness physical?)? Our completely non-physical minds create the consciousness that we each independently experience. You said that these completely non-physical minds interact with my physical brain. My question is this, (and to quote you, "I...have never seen [it] answered [well]) how could something like drugs or alchohol affect our minds and our conciousness, if our minds and the things created by them are non-physical? How could something physical cross that gap?

This isn't to say that the materialist rejects the metaphysical, because clearly concepts and ideas are metaphysical, they just reject the idea that the mind is non-physical.

 

[Philosoph]

I agree with Prof. Frink in that Neurobiologists have not shown how this all works out scientifically, but philosophers have shown that Dualism is a completely untenable position with no logical legs on which to stand. If you "Lifesaver" can "save" dualism I'm sure you'll be placed in philosophical history next to the likes of Plato and Descartes.

 

[Lifesaver]

I agree with Prof. Frink in that Neurobiologists have not shown how this all works out scientifically, but philosophers have shown that Dualism is a completely untenable position with no logical legs on which to stand. If you "Lifesaver" can "save" dualism I'm sure you'll be placed in philosophical history next to the likes of Plato and Descartes.

First show me how it is dead, and why the very serious philosophers (Thomas Nagel is one of the most, if not the, important philsophers alive) who defend dualist views, are wrong.

Then we'll see what I can do to "save" it. I don't claim this matter to be settled or that I have "figured things out at last". I do believe (and believe I can prove it) that this issue is more complex than you think and that materialists (or "one-way dualists", because they do accept mind and brain to be separate, but the first a product of the latter) have not settled the matter.

Secondly, you claim that "minds are biological products brains". Well, if it is indeed a product, and not the brain itself, it must be located somewhere else. Where is the mind located?

 

[professor frink]

Secondly, you claim that "minds are biological products brains". Well, if it is indeed a product, and not the brain itself, it must be located somewhere else. Where is the mind located?

Thats what the scientists are looking for. Thats what I have been saying for three pages. They don't know yet, but the research is far from over.

 

[Lifesaver]

I'm not able to conceive a physical thing actually being the mind, rather than something which relates to it somehow.

I don't think science can solve this philosophical problem.

 

[professor frink]

I'm not able to conceive a physical thing actually being the mind, rather than something which relates to it somehow.

I don't think science can solve this philosophical problem.

A very similar thing was said about the earth being round.

 

[Philosoph]

That aside, where is it if it's not in the brain? That is a laughable problem at the best. Last time I checked the brain was underexplored and there is space in the brain for other things to exist. I don't know if you know much about "chemistry" which is "the science of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter, especially of atomic and molecular systems" but, what modern theories (although they aren't groundbreaking anymore, just ask any high school chemistry student) tell us is that even solid objects are composed of a latticework of molecules with space in between. What this means is that at the molecular level our brains are not without spaces, so "where is the mind located?" possibly and probably in the brain (see above reference to chemistry for explanation on how solid things are only solid in the way they are molecularly constructed).

On to Thomas Nagel. First off, I believe he specializes in Moral, Legal and Political philosophy (my point here is that he doesn't specialize in philosophy of mind if that wasn't clear). Secondly, he may defend it, but I don't believe he has defended dualism against Searle's supposed "solution." Searle provided a defeater for Dualism and last time I checked no defeater-defeater was put forward leaving Searle's Materialism undefeated.

When I said that you needed to save dualism, what I meant was that you need to defeat Searle's defeater. That's how philosophy works. I'm not saying that nobody believes dualism, obviously many people do (including you it seems), but that doesn't mean that it isn't illogical. An example of this would be the "flat earth" theorists whose denial that the earth is round is illogical and doesn't change the shape of the earth. Check them out at (alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/FlatWhyFlat.htm)

 

[Philosoph]

Lifesaver, i've been responding to your objections to materialism, so maybe you could respond to my objection to dualism (relating to alchohol/drugs and the affects on the mind. See above for further details)

Peace.

 

[Lifesaver]

That aside, where is it if it's not in the brain? That is a laughable problem at the best. Last time I checked the brain was underexplored and there is space in the brain for other things to exist. I don't know if you know much about "chemistry" which is "the science of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter, especially of atomic and molecular systems" but, what modern theories (although they aren't groundbreaking anymore, just ask any high school chemistry student) tell us is that even solid objects are composed of a latticework of molecules with space in between. What this means is that at the molecular level our brains are not without spaces, so "where is the mind located?" possibly and probably in the brain (see above reference to chemistry for explanation on how solid things are only solid in the way they are molecularly constructed).

In that case, the problem remains the same. Our thoughts and experiences are not in the brain.
We have neurons that indicate what our thoughts and experiences are (neurons which might even, as you believe, create the thoughts and experiences. But still, the neurons and their products are not the same thing).
Thoughts and experiences don't exist in any physical place, but only in the realm of ideas: the mind. They are completely unreachable to anyone who is not the subject of them.

When I said that you needed to save dualism, what I meant was that you need to defeat Searle's defeater. That's how philosophy works. I'm not saying that nobody believes dualism, obviously many people do (including you it seems), but that doesn't mean that it isn't illogical. An example of this would be the "flat earth" theorists whose denial that the earth is round is illogical and doesn't change the shape of the earth. Check them out at (alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/FlatWhyFlat.htm)

What!? Another SATANIC round Earth demon-site!?!?!
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heh, just kidding. On to the topic:

What I'm trying to say is that Searle has not defeated dualism, and neither has neuroscience.
Searle even says that, once the brain has created the mind, each affects the other.
Neuroscience shows us that the relation between the two is indeed a close one (though it is far from figuring out how the brain, let alone the mind, work).