Mind: emergent property or "Ghost in the machine"?

[peck74]

Quote: “The brain does not simply get altered by chemical input. The input of light alters the brain; the input of sound alters the brain. Certain lights and certain sounds are associated with certain things - this is how when we look at a cat, we can tell that it is a cat.

When a doctor tells you, 'This will cure you,' those sounds alter the brain. The way they do so is:”

You couldn’t have missed the point more. Exactly how does sensory input affect the brain separate from mind?? You have *assumed* that brain = mind, and that mind is an emergent property of brain, so therefore your entire argument falls within your own philosophical framework and is therefore irrelevant.

Quote: “First of all, there is no logical argument that you can make that demonstrates that it is impossible for an effect to exceed a cause.”

hmm, so I guess I can give something that which I do not have. The argument is called common sense. More appeals to the magic of materialism – or is it spelled “magick”?

Quote: “And non-matter 'creates' matter all the time. Quantum fluctuations.”

You mean “virtual particles”? They are fluctuations in the curvature of the fabric of space – i.e, a release of *energy* coalescing into matter for an almost infinitely small amount of time and then returning to the fabric of space. It’s not creation ex nihilo, and if I recall there is some obscure, little know equation that tells us matter and energy are somehow related. This is off topic anyway – not sure why you brought it up?

Quote: “What a load of nonsense. So what you imagine is actually part of you? If I imagine myself to be really strong, that means that I am really strong?”

What in the world are you talking about?!? That’s not what I said at all. Reread my post again please.

Quote: “And imagination is a physical thing. It is a process in the brain.”

If it’s only a process in the brain, and you are so sure of this, I would suggest an experiment for you, which would surely win you instant fame and fortune:

• Get a bunch of lifeless matter
• Assemble a brain, bit by bit. If you get lost, just reference the code (information) stored in the relevant DNA which contains all the instructions (information) you need. This should be fairly easy.
• Construct some organs for sensory input. Hook them up to the brain.
• Stand back and watch as the brain starts to function, then hook some probes into the “imagination” generator of the brain, and confirm your bold assertion.

This should be very easy. After all, the brain has been created by random, natural (read dumb, stupid) events so assembling one should be a snap! Can’t be too complex or loaded with too much information, right? Let me know what happens. Thanks. Must be nice to have so much faith. By the way, isn’t this a Christian forum? Why are there materialists on a Christian forum anyway? Searching for some real Truth are we

 

[peck74]

[/list]The placebo effect is a known complication in medical research, but does not say at all that every single effect can be the result of people fooling themselves.

The point is that the placebo effect exists at all. I mention only to refute the ridiculous "alcohol" argument.

And I work with problems that I can't imagine all the time. How is this? Well, it's simple: I can't imagine them just because I can't hold all of the required information in my head at once. So I write the information down, or put it on a computer. I can imagine every small step of the problem, but can never see the whole thing at once. Thus I end up with a result that is "bigger" than anything I can imagine.

Are you pulling my leg? Your "work" takes on greater inner experience, greater mental ability than you do??? You see the problem with this?

 

[Chalnoth]

If it’s only a process in the brain, and you are so sure of this, I would suggest an experiment for you, which would surely win you instant fame and fortune:

• Get a bunch of lifeless matter
• Assemble a brain, bit by bit. If you get lost, just reference the code (information) stored in the relevant DNA which contains all the instructions (information) you need. This should be fairly easy.
• Construct some organs for sensory input. Hook them up to the brain.
• Stand back and watch as the brain starts to function, then hook some probes into the “imagination” generator of the brain, and confirm your bold assertion.

Yeah, if only that experiment were possible. Please, if you're going to ask people to try out your hypotheses, suggest something realistic. The brain is an exceedingly complex piece of machinery, and we've only just begun to be able to clone small amounts of tissues, nothing close to an entire organ.

Never mind the ethical problems related to doing something like this if it were possible...

 

[peck74]

The brain is an exceedingly complex piece of machinery

Gasp! Machinery? Chance + time doesn’t create machinery – not even a simple machine. That sounds like design! If you’re going to assert without a shred of evidence that mind comes from brain then I will challenge you to make a brain and prove it. I remain undecided but with an open mind. Blind, random, dumb processes created it, so reconstructing it should be no problem at all. If tomorrow mind was shown to emerge from brain then I would concede, but don’t hold your breath on science proving that.

 

[AV1611VET]

The Nazi's were never the only group of people in the world. Their actions incurred the wrath of many others, and rightly so. They were accountable to the world community.

Study history, Chalnoth; almost every major nation on the face of the Earth kicked the Jews out of their borders - except the United States - who has anti-pogrom laws added to our very constitution (viz., the Bill of Rights).

That's why the Jews had no country until 1948, when Biblical prophecy was fulfilled, and they got their country back.

 

[David Gould]

You couldn’t have missed the point more. Exactly how does sensory input affect the brain separate from mind??

We cannot detect 'the mind'. All we can detect is the brain.

You have *assumed* that brain = mind, and that mind is an emergent property of brain, so therefore your entire argument falls within your own philosophical framework and is therefore irrelevant.

Um, no. I am using the evidence that we have - when we shine a light into someone's eyes, the operations of their brain are affected. Can you point me to the operations of the mind or the soul (it seems that the two terms are synonomous)? Any evidence?

hmm, so I guess I can give something that which I do not have. The argument is called common sense. More appeals to the magic of materialism – or is it spelled “magick”?

Common sense ... right. Like the 'common sense' that things get heavier as they go faster, and the 'common sense' of quantum mechanics.

The thing about common sense is that it is useless in science and useless in philosophy.

You mean “virtual particles”? They are fluctuations in the curvature of the fabric of space – i.e, a release of *energy* coalescing into matter for an almost infinitely small amount of time and then returning to the fabric of space. It’s not creation ex nihilo, and if I recall there is some obscure, little know equation that tells us matter and energy are somehow related. This is off topic anyway – not sure why you brought it up?

Because you seem to think that an effect has to be lesser than its cause. A quantum event has no cause, and you cannot get any lesser than that.

What in the world are you talking about?!? That’s not what I said at all. Reread my post again please.

I am talking about your ridiculous claim that imagining something is equivalent to having it.

In the context of your claim that no effect can be greater than its cause, you have equated 'I can imagine this being stronger' with same as 'I am stronger'.

In other words, if I build a robot that is stronger than a man and make the claim that the effect is stronger than the cause, you claim that this is not the case - my imagining strength was sufficient to classify as greater.

If it’s only a process in the brain,

What do you mean by 'only'?

and you are so sure of this, I would suggest an experiment for you, which would surely win you instant fame and fortune:

• Get a bunch of lifeless matter
• Assemble a brain, bit by bit. If you get lost, just reference the code (information) stored in the relevant DNA which contains all the instructions (information) you need. This should be fairly easy.
• Construct some organs for sensory input. Hook them up to the brain.
• Stand back and watch as the brain starts to function, then hook some probes into the “imagination” generator of the brain, and confirm your bold assertion.

This should be very easy. After all, the brain has been created by random, natural (read dumb, stupid) events so assembling one should be a snap! Can’t be too complex or loaded with too much information, right?

I am a materialist. This does not mean that I think the process is simple. I am unsure why you think this. The human brain evolved over millions of years in complex and changing environments. To think that this could be easily accomplished in a lab in the manner in which you suggest is laughable.

However, given what we know about how evolution operates and given the massive advances we have made in understanding the way the human brain works, I believe that within 50 years we will have an AI that has all the functionality of a human brain.

If that happens, will you become a materialist? Oh, wait - you don't work well with evidence, do you?

Let me know what happens. Thanks. Must be nice to have so much faith. By the way, isn’t this a Christian forum? Why are there materialists on a Christian forum anyway? Searching for some real Truth are we

Yes. If you can present some evidence that the soul is real, you will have made a huge step forward.

 

[Chalnoth]

The point is that the placebo effect exists at all. I mention only to refute the ridiculous "alcohol" argument.

It doesn't refute the alcohol argument. I'll just re-post the perfect counterexample: vodka. Vodka is used to spike drinks because it is possible for it to go undetected by the one drinking it. So, if I spiked the drink of my date, and she ended up getting drunk when she didn't intend to, it's okay for me to take advantage of her because her soul wasn't affected, and it's just the placebo effect making her think she is drunk? Even though she had no knowledge that she imbibed more alcohol than she thought?

Are you pulling my leg? Your "work" takes on greater inner experience, greater mental ability than you do??? You see the problem with this?

That's right. I am a graduate student working in physics, and I frequently deal with problems that are far too long to fit within my mind at any one time. I can fully understand each small piece of the problem, and so the final result, when I am done, is bigger than anything I can fit within my mind at any one time.

Because of this, I have to do a lot of trial and error work when dealing with a new problem. I cannot know when starting a problem where I will end up, as I can only keep in my mind a small piece of the whole, so by making use of external storage (paper or a computer), I can solve much more difficult problems than I could ever sove in my head.

Thus, with only a small amount of mental ability, I am able to tackle single, small pieces of a large problem. But add these little bits of work here and there over time, and I'll have done the equivalent of what would have taken much more brain power to do at once.

It's basically the same thing with emergent phenomena: one single brain cell can't think, remember, or do any of the things that the brain can. But but billions upon billions of nerve cells together in a complex network, and the tiny amount of work of each individual cell adds up to dealing with things that are much, much larger than what any one cell could ever do.

 

[Chalnoth]

Gasp! Machinery? Chance + time doesn’t create machinery – not even a simple machine. That sounds like design! If you’re going to assert without a shred of evidence that mind comes from brain then I will challenge you to make a brain and prove it. I remain undecided but with an open mind. Blind, random, dumb processes created it, so reconstructing it should be no problem at all. If tomorrow mind was shown to emerge from brain then I would concede, but don’t hold your breath on science proving that.

Because you missed an essential component: selection.

Chance + time + selection = machinery.

Because the selection process is continually culling those members of the population that are less fit, fitness continually increases. Thus the moment when an organism has a clear, continuous path to increased fitness through inreased intelligence, that organism will evolve increased intelligence. Every time.

 

[Grummpy]

peck74

Gasp! Machinery? Chance + time doesn’t create machinery – not even a simple machine. That sounds like design! If you’re going to assert without a shred of evidence that mind comes from brain then I will challenge you to make a brain and prove it.

Well, since we cannot yet make a brain, we do the opposite and study brains that have been damaged by accident and desease. The brain areas for different aspects of the mind are well mapped and are simular from one person to the next. Simular thoughts and activities coincide with simular activities in the brain of all humans, the mind is lost as parts of the brain is lost, the area of the brain damaged determines the type of loss. The mind must therefore be a property of that brain and ceases to exist if too much damage is done to the brain. No indication of a "soul" has yet been found.

Grumpy

 

[Chalnoth]

Study history, Chalnoth; almost every major nation on the face of the Earth kicked the Jews out of their borders - except the United States - who has anti-pogrom laws added to our very constitution (viz., the Bill of Rights).

Our Bill of rights didn't keep us from putting Japanese citizens into concentration camps during World War II.

But whichever way you slice it, it was Christianity that was always hell-bent on persecution of Jews, not atheism.

 

[AV1611VET]

Peck, nice to meet you. See what you're up against in this forum, brother?

1900 posts and they still think I'm a YEC.

God bless, and I pray for you.

 

[David Gould]

Yes - that is the thing that I forgot to mention, Chalnoth: selection, selection, selection.

Evolution does not equal random chance. Write this out 100 times, peck.

 

[anunbeliever]

I would suggest an experiment for you, which would surely win you instant fame and fortune:

• Get a bunch of lifeless matter
• Assemble a brain, bit by bit. If you get lost, just reference the code (information) stored in the relevant DNA which contains all the instructions (information) you need. This should be fairly easy.
• Construct some organs for sensory input. Hook them up to the brain.
• Stand back and watch as the brain starts to function, then hook some probes into the “imagination” generator of the brain, and confirm your bold assertion.

For my lifeless matter i'll use computer processors.
I'll assemble a neural network with these processors. Getting the design just right will be difficult because sentience requires an extremely complex matrix.
Sensory input is easy; camera, microphone, tactile sensors.
We can already assess the functionality of a neural network. Maybe in 50 years we'll have developed one with sentience.

 

[birdan]

Our Bill of rights didn't keep us from putting Japanese citizens into concentration camps during World War II.

But whichever way you slice it, it was Christianity that was always hell-bent on persecution of Jews, not atheism.

In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule-- if my counsel does not please your, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty sharers before God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, this dear mother, all hristians, all authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe-conduct, or communion with us.... .With this faithful counsel and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my conscience.
. . .
First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly - and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

So who wrote the above?
An atheist?
Hitler?

 

[AV1611VET]

So who wrote the above?
An atheist?
Hitler?

Martin Luther wrote it --- what's that have to do with the Bill of Right's?

 

[Chalnoth]

Google tells me that it was Martin Luther:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html

 

[Chalnoth]

Martin Luther wrote it --- what's that have to do with the Bill of Right's?

You said:

I submit that reducing us to the status of "glorified animals" is nothing more than anti-Semitism in disguise.

Anti-semitism has been a component of Christianity from near the very beginning. Anti-semitism has never, ever been related to the theory of evolution.

 

[AV1611VET]

Our Bill of rights didn't keep us from putting Japanese citizens into concentration camps during World War II.

But whichever way you slice it, it was Christianity that was always hell-bent on persecution of Jews, not atheism.

Okay ... let's try this from another angle:

The Bill of Rights insures no pogrom will occur on U.S. soil legally.

Japanese citizens in WW2, Martin Luther quotes aside, the Jews are welcome here in the United States.

And it's because of them that this country even exists, let alone is so blessed.

q.v. the Abrahamic Covenant ---

[bible]Genesis 12:1-3[/bible]

JERUSALEM !

 

[AV1611VET]

You said:

Anti-semitism has been a component of Christianity from near the very beginning. Anti-semitism has never, ever been related to the theory of evolution.

It's not, huh?

The moral antecedents to Nazi rule do not rest in Mein Kampf but in the social Darwinism of the German academies starting almost a century before Hitler's rise to power. When Darwin's "Origin of the Species" was first published in 1859, it took the German intellectual establishment by storm and captured the minds of German thinkers in ways that few other ideas did. It would cause a cataclysmic cultural shift that paved the way for Hitler.
To German intellectuals, Darwin's theory posited not only biological scheme that described the development of organisms, but also supplied the key that could unlock the mystery about creating a better society. From the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth century, Darwinism would become the dominant interpretive paradigm in most other disciplines as well including history, and anthropology.

 

[shernren]

Come on, guys. Science has not only proved that the soul exists, but that it weighs under a hundred grams.

At the end of three hours and forty minutes he [a terminal patient who had been sitting on a bed upon a platform beam scale sensitive to two-tenths of an ounce] expired and suddenly coincident with death the beam end dropped with an audible stroke hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of an ounce.
This loss of weight could not be due to evaporation of respiratory moisture and sweat, because that had been determined to go on, in his case, at the rate of one-sixtieth of an ounce per minute, whereas this loss was sudden and large ...
The bowels did not move; and if they had moved the weight would still have remained on the bed except for a slow loss by the evaporation of moisture, depending, of course, upon the fluidity of the feces. The bladder evacuated one or two drams of urine. This remained on the bed and could only have influenced the weight by slow gradual evaporation and therefore in no way could account for the sudden loss.
There remained but one more channel of loss to explore, the expiration of all but the residual air in the lungs. Getting upon the bed myself, my colleague put the beam at actual balance. Inspiration and expiration of air as forcibly as possible by me had no effect upon the beams ...

- Dr. Duncan McDougall, April 1907 (quoted in "Stiff" by Mary Roach).