The Mind/ Body Problem

[Paradoxum]

Have you heard much of astral projection? It is the practice of leaving your body while the body sleeps. The part of you that leaves in the astral/spirit body which is the counterpart to your physical body. It was through my researching this practice that I came across this kinda stuff.

I've heard of it. I doubt it happens. They might think it happened (because brains do strange things) but I don't think they were separate from their brain.

Its been studied by science for some time. The earliest scientific book on the subject that I was able to find was published in 1917. I dont pretend to be smart with science or know atom talk (lol) but I do know there is a strand of science dedicated to investigating this.

I am not sure if you are familiar with chakras (which are a part of the spirit body) and I was told that they have been proved to exist by science though I have not come across anything that back this up. Just a thought.

I've also heard of chakras, but as far as I know they haven't been proven by science.

The significant function is only one way: your mind/feeling is affected by the outside physical environment, includes the condition and activity of your body. The effect of the other way (you think/feel, so you act) is a rather normal function of life.

I agree that we sense the outside physical world through our bodies. I'm not sure if that was your point.

I do understand your position a lot more clearly(thank "god" no Cartesian dualism), and it is a position that most human beings have. It's a position that I'm still getting around, but I do not wish to presuppose something outside of our known reality.

I'm not sure you fully understand the problem. It sounds like you are accepting materialism without thinking about it. I say that loving science and knowing a fair amount about it. I can accept a physical explanation for the brain and every human action.

I haven't got a definite position, but two possible ones that make sense are property dualism interactionism, and a type of monism.

The problem I see is that we as human beings think we are thinking beings, that we are special. You think you are you and can feel and think from your perspective. You feel like a single person, and this is inconsistent with what you see in reality, how everything is simply made up of particles which have no "self", yet you are a collection of particles and seem to have a self, and other people seem to have different selfs.

That isn't how I would phrase it. Maybe I don't think my thoughts, maybe I am not in control, but that doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that I feel.

Pinch yourself. You feel a sensation. That sensation has nothing to do with the movement of particles. 'An electron at point B at velocity v' can never explain why you feel a sharp sensation.

A way it has been put, why don't humans exist in the dark? Without touch, sight, or hearing. I mean, the brain can still deterministically react to outside causes, purely robotically. But strangely there isn't just a body which is just a complex robot, there is a thing that feels colour, and sound, and taste.

Anyway, I think we see eye to eye with this. Now what it does seem you suppose is a homunculus, as I described previously. Some being that experiences what happens to our body, sees the information that comes through our eyes. This homunculus is the one that feels the "feelings" and experiences the "emotions".

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a homunculus. You could call it the ghost in the machine, though I don't believe in a soul or probably not substance dualism (Descartes). In fact I would say that there isn't a ghost or machine, the ghost and the machine are the same thing. The machine is by nature ghostly, and the ghost is by nature physical. They are the same thing. I don't think this is beyond science.

As for the possibility of a physical and phenomenological side of atoms per say, we can assume the phenomenological side to be the homunculus(the being that feels and experiences). Hence it will be under the same questions I will now ask to determine the nature of your homunculus:

I'm not sure if the use of the word homunculus is helpful. I'll try to answer, but I'm not sure I believe in the homunculus.

1. Is your homunculus physical or non-physical? More specifically, would it be possible for science to observe this homunculus?

Both. The brain is the homunculus. Science can already sense this bit of it. Of course physical equipment will find it hard to contact the non-physical.

I believe Bertrand Russell gave a helpful explanation (if I am correct in remember it to be him that said it). In my own words; in science thing are described in terms of what they do. A quark is a thing that acts in a certain way. But that still leaves us wondering what exactly a quark is. Without reference to how a quark acts, what is it? It could be that the essence all fundamental particles is the phenomenological. So the phenomenological is what a thing is, and the physical is how it acts.

So science can tell me what my brain does, and I feel what my brain (or part of my brain) is.

2. How does your homunculus interact with the physical body if it interacts with the physical body at all?

Either they are the same thing, so they don't need to interact, or, if they are different but connected, then by psycophysical laws.

I will now raise at least one example which relate to dualism, but also relate to the homunculus idea. These examples may raise problems with your homunculus(we will find out).

a) The sleepwalker problem

When a person is sleep walking, they claim to be unconscious of what they are doing. They do not experience, feel or see what they do. But evidently, their body can act fully independent of their consciousness, often doing normal things, such as running, avoiding obstacles.

What happens to the homunculus during this "sleep walk", or even sleep in general? Does the homunculus fall to sleep, ignore what is happening?

The brain is in a sleep state so the mind is in a corresponding state.

b) Imaginary pain

Ever had a dream where in your dream you suffer some sort of pain. That pain feels real in that dream, and you suddenly wake up and realise the pain isn't really there?

If our homunculus is an experiencing being, how does it experience imaginary pain in the same way as it experiences real pain generated from nervous impulses in our body? Does the homunculus dream, or does the brain dream? Clearly if the homunculus associates the same imaginary pain to real pain, how come it can't distinguish them?

I don't think I have ever felt real pain in a dream. Nor have I heard sound. If someone speaks to me in a dream I just know what they are sayings, I don't even know if their lips move. But that is a side point because I still see things in dreams.

The brain dreams and creates brain activity of sensation. I sense this because I am my brain if the brain is both physical and phenomenological.

c) The perfect drawing

This may not apply directly to your view, but if you also believe that this homunculus is a thinking thing which can make decisions on what our body does, this is a serious problem.

Ever tried to draw the perfect drawing? It is a challenge for human beings to draw say, an exact recreation of the computer/phone/laptop infront of you. Or perfectly draw the exact angles, shapes and curvature of an object. Only certain people; artists, have the ability to do this.

Though if we had a homunculus that could see everything and observe what we could see, wouldn't it be able to draw the perfect drawing? It'd be like transcribing a drawing from paper to another sheet of paper.

I don't know what you mean.

The 'homunculus' is only capable of doing what the brain can do.

 

[Paradoxum]

Or maybe that's just what you're programmed to think by genetics and brain chemistry.

I'm sorry, I assumed most people understood the mind/body problem. I didn't think I would have to explain in detail. This could take a while.

It doesn't matter what I am programmed to think, I still feel anyway.

Can you explain what distinction you're making here by including "actually" in the description? Perhaps "actually" feeling sensation really does boil down to a set of chemical interactions in the brain. Why rule out this option?

I mean, I don't just act like I feel pain, like a robot might. You can program a robot to act in pain all you want, make it say it is in pain, but it wont know what pain is until it feels pain. In the same way, the brain can make my body act in pain, say it is in pain, but there is more than that. I feel the pain.

Perhaps a better way of putting it is that, from a scientific point of view (so far) there is no such thing as blue. Nothing in the world is objectively blue. Colour doesn't exist. But I see colour. I see something which doesn't exist to modern science. I feel pain, but pain isn't a thing out there to measure. You can measure my brain activity, but that isn't measuring the sensation of pain.

Just like you can never use a set of CCD-produced signals processed by silicon microchips running computer code to actually see the box and experience the sensation of sight. Here you're just telling us that robots are different from us meat-bags. True, but that doesn't mean that robots using their sensors and processing equipment to react to visible light is fundamentally, deeply different than ours.

If all they do is react then it is different. You can see this from your own experience. You don't merely see identify a certain wavelength of light and call in blue, you see the vivid colour of blue.

Not on its own, of course. Those would emerge from the interaction between the apple and your senses. You're still left with no indication that there's anything other than physical stuff going on.

And what do the senses do? Where is the green of the apple in the eye. Where is taste on the tongue?

Green doesn't exist in the physical. Green isn't a thing you can measure.

Actually, it's only really a problem for dualism.

In monism, when talking about mental vs. physical phenomena, all you're really talking about is a shift in perspective. I can have the mental experience of deciding to bite the apple, and you, the observer, can observe the physical result. We have differing but complementary perspectives of the same event.

In dualism, you're left with an immense obstacle: how does the 'non-physical' causally interact with the physical?

In both is still the question of how you get sensations from the physical (which have no sensations in the).

We know that every relevant study on the subject has indicated that minds are the product of physical brains. Dualists in neuroscience are about as common as young earth creationists in biology.

I agree that brains produce the mind. That doesn't mean the brain is just physical.

I'm much more interested in what neuroscience has to say, but the trend in philosophy is also toward monism, especially in the last fifty years.

More to the point, I don't deny there are still questions, but all of the answers that we have so far point to monism.

It depends what type of monism you mean. From the sound of it you don't mean a monism which goes anyway to solving the mind/body problem.

How can the process in the brain due to atoms we call the mind be connected to the particles that make up said brain? Assuming I understand the question, I'd say in the same way a video game, database, or computer program can be connected to a bunch of silicon, plastic, gold, etc. How can the movement of particles allow a computer to detect, analyze, and categorize external stimuli such as sound, movement, radiation, pressure, light, etc?

Where's the disconnect? What exactly is the problem about neurons, electrocity, and some ions creating what we call experience, mind, consciousness, etc?

Because computers don't hear sound, or see light. They just sense it. They don't feel the sensation of experience.

Well regardless of discussions of "the mind" your brain is specifically for experiencing information from the senses.

There is no problem if the mind is how you subjectively experience the brain.

But why is the a subjective experience at all? Why aren't we all mindless robots. Our brains can react to light, but it is our minds that see colour. How do we see colour if colour doesn't objective exist in the physical?

 

[elephunky]

Actually, it's rejected for the same reason all pseudoscience is rejected - it doesn't stand up to the most basic scrutiny.

The only evidence for it is anecdotal. In as far as it has been studied by science under controlled conditions, it has failed.

You were lied to.

In regards to parapsychology - from what I have researched on the subject they have conduct their studies, research and experiments with the same standard as any other strand of science.

I wonder how science can study astral projection when it is not physical?

That may be your opinion, but it is not mine.

 

[variant]

But why is the a subjective experience at all? Why aren't we all mindless robots. Our brains can react to light, but it is our minds that see colour. How do we see colour if colour doesn't objective exist in the physical?

Color is a representation of light. Our brains are for sensation of light, so why is it such a hard leap that they would conceptualize it for easier processing given the ability? When a computer sees light it doesn't have the ability to conceptualize it.

To the rest I don't even understand the question.

Why not have a subjective experience?

The ability to think analyze and conceptualize abstractly seems to add quite a bit of adaptability and complexity over mindless robots.

The ability to think about other peoples subjective experience has enhanced our ability to socialize exponentially.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

In regards to parapsychology - from what I have researched on the subject they have conduct their studies, research and experiments with the same standard as any other strand of science.

In as far as the claims of parapsychology have been subjected to scientific scrutiny, they have failed.

I wonder how science can study astral projection when it is not physical?

The exact same way you study the truth of any positive claim - create a controlled environment and put it to the test.

For example:

Put an object in the middle of an empty room. Have someone outside the room 'astrally-project' into the room, then return to their body and describe the object.

It fails, every single time. Just like 'divining', 'psychic surgery', 'channeling' and all other new age BS.

That may be your opinion, but it is not mine.

I base my opinions on logic, reason and evidence. What do you base yours on?

 

[sandwiches]

Because computers don't hear sound, or see light. They just sense it. They don't feel the sensation of experience.

Computers have sound sensors, wires that transmit signals from the sensors, processing circuits that analyze the signal, memory to store the analysis, they can even express what they've detected and how they interpreted it. How is that different from humans other than using nebulous words like "feel" or "experience?"

 

[elephunky]

In as far as the claims of parapsychology have been subjected to scientific scrutiny, they have failed.

Im pretty sure you already said this. No matter.

The exact same way you study the truth of any positive claim - create a controlled environment and put it to the test.

For example:

Put an object in the middle of an empty room. Have someone outside the room 'astrally-project' into the room, then return to their body and describe the object.

It fails, every single time. Just like 'divining', 'psychic surgery', 'channeling' and all other new age BS.

Please dont call my beliefs BS, it is unecessary. One does not just simply, as you put it, 'astrally-project'. It is not a "think and it shall be done" action. It takes a lot to even get to the point of being ready to jump out of your body while it is sleeping.

Someone who astral travels would not only see objects, but other astral beings. I wonder how much of that was put to the test hmmm? I wonder how well practised the so called traveller was and I wonder where the evidence is to back up that is bogus.

I have no idea what psychic surgery refers to and I believe that some divining and channeling is bogus but that does not discount all events of such things. It's really meant to be a personal thing, not something for sale or fame.

I base my opinions on logic, reason and evidence. What do you base yours on?

I base my opinions on my own logic, experience, research, etc but I dont see why I should have to justify my opinions or beliefs to anyone.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Green doesn't exist in the physical... Green isn't a thing you can measure.

Yes it is. It's very easy to measure light and the color spectrum. It has an objective basis completely independent of your sensation.

This is the same mistake that presuppositional apologists make with the TAG argument. They conflate logical axioms, such as A=A, with the reality that they describe, and their relationship to the mind.

Yes, a mind is required to come up with the logical equation A=A.

No, mind is not required for a thing to be itself.

Likewise...

Yes, a mind is required to experience the thing you call 'green'.

No, a mind is not required for that pattern of light waves to exist.

No appeal to anything outside of the physical is necessary.

 

[sandwiches]

Im pretty sure you already said this. No matter.


Please dont call my beliefs BS, it is unecessary. One does not just simply, as you put it, 'astrally-project'. It is not a "think and it shall be done" action. It takes a lot to even get to the point of being ready to jump out of your body while it is sleeping.

Someone who astral travels would not only see objects, but other astral beings. I wonder how much of that was put to the test hmmm? I wonder how well practised the so called traveller was and I wonder where the evidence is to back up that is bogus.

I have no idea what psychic surgery refers to and I believe that some divining and channeling is bogus but that does not discount all events of such things. It's really meant to be a personal thing, not something for sale or fame.

Irrelevant. His point stands. So called astral traveling, psychic powers, etc have not only never been verified but falsified as advertised. Could there be some other kind of real psychic power we're unaware of? It's possible. We've yet to find one that is demonstrably and observably true, however.

I base my opinions on my own logic, experience, research, etc but I dont see why I should have to justify my opinions or beliefs to anyone.

Welcome to a discussion forum.

 

[elephunky]

Welcome to a discussion forum.

Discussing these things is quite different from justifying your point of view.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Im pretty sure you already said this.

You're welcome to cite any primary scientific research in support of parapsychology if you wish to counter my claim.

And I do mean primary scientific research, as in established peer-reviewed journals representing a critically robust body of evidence - not popular science and absolutely not new age literature.

Please dont call my beliefs BS, it is unecessary.

People garner respect. Beliefs don't.

Do you, for example, respect the belief that Caucasians are inherently superior to all other races?

Of course you don't, nor do you feel obligated to pretend you do.

One does not just simply, as you put it, 'astrally-project'.

It is not a "think and it shall be done" action.

It takes a lot to even get to the point of being ready to jump out of your body while it is sleeping.

Someone who astral travels would not only see objects, but other astral beings.

Each of these is a claim that requires substantiation. As it stands, they are naked assertions.

I wonder where the evidence is to back up that is bogus.

It is not anyone's responsibility to disprove your claims. You are the positive claimant. The burden of proof is yours.

It's really meant to be a personal thing, not something for sale or fame.

That's peculiar, considering it's a multi-billion dollar industry.

I base my opinions on my own logic, experience, research, etc

Good. In that case it should be very easy to substantiate your claims.

but I dont see why I should have to justify my opinions or beliefs to anyone.

You only have to if you want to be taken seriously in a critical discourse, such as the one you and I are having right now.

Otherwise, I feel the exact same way about your beliefs as I do toward Christians, Muslims, Scientologists etc. - as long as your beliefs aren't detrimental to me or other people (ie, you're not flying planes into buildings because you think an invisible sky wizard told you to), then you're welcome to them.

 

[sandwiches]

Discussing these things is quite different from justifying your point of view.

We are discussing beliefs. It is well within the discussion's boundaries to ask why you hold such beliefs.

 

[elephunky]

You're welcome to cite any primary scientific research in support of parapsychology if you wish to counter my claim.

And I do mean primary scientific research, as in established peer-reviewed journals representing a critically robust body of evidence - not popular science and absolutely not new age literature.

It is not anyone's responsibility to disprove your claims. You are the positive claimant. The burden of proof is yours.

When I first posted in this thread I made it pretty clear that I am not the most knowledgeable on such subjects nor do I pretend to be. I only comment on what I know. I do not, for example, read scientific journals. I have no interest in reading these things for the sake of arguements. Instead I listen to podcasts, I read books, I read internet articles. If there is something in particular I would like to read up on, I google it like most people. I have a partial interest in science - in how it relates to my beliefs and the theories they come up with. Depending on what I find will depend on whether I adopt it or not. I also find it interesting that you ask me to cite scientific research yet you do not cite the so called debunking.

I also do not feel the need to have scientific evidence for every statement, opinion or experience that I have ever had. Maybe I was mistaken but I thought this was a Philosophy part of the forum, not science. I understand that you might feel the need to, but I do not. I think that not enough credit is given to collective experiences.

That's peculiar, considering it's a multi-billion dollar industry.

People are easily sucked into such things. My step sister is seeing a total con artist because she takes everything at face value. Just because there is a group of people who exploit people and claim to have these abilities when they dont doesnt mean that all people who speak of their own experiences in those subjects are making it up to.

You only have to if you want to be taken seriously in a critical discourse, such as the one you and I are having right now.

Otherwise, I feel the exact same way about your beliefs as I do toward Christians, Muslims, Scientologists etc. - as long as your beliefs aren't detrimental to me or other people (ie, you're not flying planes into buildings because you think an invisible sky wizard told you to), then you're welcome to them.

As previously mentioned, I am not very analytically minded but this does not mean that I dont have valid opinions, experiences and beliefs. I am a very spiritual person. This of course makes these types of discussion difficult when people demand science to "prove" that I am not just looney in la la land. I do, however, always try to apply logic to every subject and situation.

As for my beliefs, I will discuss them when a topic comes up that calls for it but other than that I pretty much keep it to myself unless I am seeking outside opinions. For me, its a personal thing and I dont expect everyone to hold the same beliefs.

 

[elephunky]

We are discussing beliefs. It is well within the discussion's boundaries to ask why you hold such beliefs.

I think you missed my point. I have no problem with people enquiring as to why I hold certain beliefs, its all in the manner in which it is asked that is the difference.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

When I first posted in this thread I made it pretty clear that I am not the most knowledgeable on such subjects nor do I pretend to be.

What I'm asking of you is not extraordinary. This is no more scrutiny than I apply to any other 'supernatural'/'spiritual'/pick your vacuous buzzword claim.

I only comment on what I know.

Knowledge is demonstrable. If you can't demonstrate it, it's indistinguishable from imagination, or fable.

I do not, for example, read scientific journals. I have no interest in reading these things for the sake of arguements. Instead I listen to podcasts, I read books, I read internet articles. If there is something in particular I would like to read up on, I google it like most people. I have a partial interest in science - in how it relates to my beliefs and the theories they come up with. Depending on what I find will depend on whether I adopt it or not.

That's nice. I care about what's true, not about cherry-picking evidence for things I already believe.

I also find it interesting that you ask me to cite scientific research yet you do not cite the so called debunking.

The 'debunking', in as far as there is anything to debunk, is in the fact that parapsychology advocates have not met their burden of proof.

There really is nothing else that needs to be said, but if you want a basic, popular-level primer, you can start here:

parapsychology - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com

I also do not feel the need to have scientific evidence for every statement, opinion or experience that I have ever had.

Me neither. Claims can easily require different standards of evidence, depending on their nature.

For example,

If you tell me you flew to Chicago yesterday by riding in an airplane, I'm happy to believe it based only on your say so.

If you tell me you flew to Chicago yesterday by flapping your arms up and down, I will need much more than your say so. I will need critically robust, verifiable evidence.

So goes with your claims of 'astral-projection'. You are making intimate claims to knowledge as to the existence and operation of this phenomena. You will be asked to substantiate them.

I think that not enough credit is given to collective experiences.

Personal anecdote is the absolute weakest form of evidence. It is subject to myriad logical and practical obstacles, including but not limited to confirmation bias, bystander effect, sharpshooter fallacy and basic cognitive problems relating to memory, which is extremely weak and prone to numerous errors, not to mention plain old dishonesty.

As such, it is effectively worthless as a means of verifying truth claims.

Just because there is a group of people who exploit people and claim to have these abilities when they dont doesnt mean that all people who speak of their own experiences in those subjects are making it up to.

Those people are welcome to provide evidence for their claims an time they wish.

As previously mentioned, I am not very analytically minded but this does not mean that I dont have valid opinions, experiences and beliefs. I am a very spiritual person. This of course makes these types of discussion difficult when people demand science to "prove" that I am not just looney in la la land.

Fine then. You've categorically written off science as a methodology for establishing the truth of your claims.

That doesn't bereave you of the burden of proof. You still need to own up to it, except now you also have to formulate a methodology for doing so, without stealing any conceptual groundwork from science.

So,

What is the methodology of 'spiritualism'? What are its mechanisms? How are truth claims about 'spiritualism' verified?

Most importantly, what makes you think there are 'spiritual' things to verify in the first place?

I do, however, always try to apply logic to every subject and situation.

You would do well to study logic before you try to apply it. You've made a number of very basic fallacies so far.

Here's a good place to start:

Logical Fallacies

 

[elephunky]

I wont indulge you anymore Eight Foot Manchild. Hope the thread returns to the original topic. Sorry for the derail OP

 

[Paradoxum]

Color is a representation of light. Our brains are for sensation of light, so why is it such a hard leap that they would conceptualize it for easier processing given the ability? When a computer sees light it doesn't have the ability to conceptualize it.

So the question is, in a world is dead matter, how it is possible to conceptualize? Physics is meant to work by laws, all the brain has to do is follow the laws. If the mind doesn't affect matter then conceptualization shouldn't make a difference.

To the rest I don't even understand the question.

Why not have a subjective experience?

The ability to think analyze and conceptualize abstractly seems to add quite a bit of adaptability and complexity over mindless robots.

The ability to think about other peoples subjective experience has enhanced our ability to socialize exponentially.

Because nothing physical is subjective. Brains work just like rocks. With mindless atoms bouncing around according to laws. Saying, "The brain is complex and mysterious", doesn't answer the question any more than "God is mysterious".

I'll get another example. Imagine that the most expert scientist on colour vision has lived all her life in a black and white room and has never let that room. As along as she stays in that rooms she will never know what it means to see red. All her knowledge of how the brain works will never teach her what red is. She has to go outside and see the red rose outside the building to know what red is. The physical alone doesn't explain what red is.

Computers have sound sensors, wires that transmit signals from the sensors, processing circuits that analyze the signal, memory to store the analysis, they can even express what they've detected and how they interpreted it. How is that different from humans other than using nebulous words like "feel" or "experience?"

Because feel and experience are things that are undeniably real to any human. I can be 100% sure I see blue right now. Nothing else compared to the certainty of my own experience.

Rocks don't feel experience, but nevertheless are made up of atoms, just like our brains. Mindless humans could still identify food and water and robotically consume them for its programmed continued existence, but that doesn't explain why sight and sound come alive to us in experience. The universe is dark and cold (metaphorically), but strangely we feel.

Yes it is. It's very easy to measure light and the color spectrum. It has an objective basis completely independent of your sensation.

This is the same mistake that presuppositional apologists make with the TAG argument. They conflate logical axioms, such as A=A, with the reality that they describe, and their relationship to the mind.

Yes, a mind is required to come up with the logical equation A=A.

No, mind is not required for a thing to be itself.

Likewise...

Yes, a mind is required to experience the thing you call 'green'.

No, a mind is not required for that pattern of light waves to exist.

What you measure isn't colour, what you are measuring is the frequency of the light. That doesn't explain where the colour comes from.

No appeal to anything outside of the physical is necessary.

Well, you haven't some that.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

What you measure isn't colour, what you are measuring is the frequency of the light.

The only difference is the label you apply to it, based on your sensory apprehension of those frequencies. If you cease to exist, the label is gone, but those frequencies are still there.

This is as trivial as saying 'what you measure isn't a kilometer, what you are measuring is the space between two points'.

That doesn't explain where the colour comes from.

It explains exactly where the color comes from - a pattern of light waves plus sensory apprehension.

Nowhere in this process is it necessary or even helpful to appeal to anything non-physical.

 

[KCfromNC]

I'm sorry, I assumed most people understood the mind/body problem. I didn't think I would have to explain in detail. This could take a while.

I think it's important, since from what I've seen the mind/body problem only exists if you assume dualism, or as others have said, if you take what your subjective mind is telling you about how it works way too seriously.

It doesn't matter what I am programmed to think, I still feel anyway.

Yep, but that says nothing about those feelings being anything other than a physical system at work.

I mean, I don't just act like I feel pain, like a robot might. You can program a robot to act in pain all you want, make it say it is in pain, but it wont know what pain is until it feels pain.

You're just asserting the same thing over and over. I know that robots aren't the same as humans - that's not in question. What I'd like to see is proof that the only way to know something is to experience it in the exact way that human brains do.

In the same way, the brain can make my body act in pain, say it is in pain, but there is more than that. I feel the pain.

Yes, there are many physical processes at work when you experience pain. So?

Perhaps a better way of putting it is that, from a scientific point of view (so far) there is no such thing as blue. Nothing in the world is objectively blue. Colour doesn't exist. But I see colour. I see something which doesn't exist to modern science.

I have no idea where you're getting this idea. Are you confusing the fact that blue is an adjective rather than a noun with the fact that blue doesn't exist?

I feel pain, but pain isn't a thing out there to measure. You can measure my brain activity, but that isn't measuring the sensation of pain.

How do you know this isn't just a limitation of our current technology for observing brain function?

Green doesn't exist in the physical. Green isn't a thing you can measure.

I've done it several times. Actually, I've let a computer measure/experience it for me and report the results. Kinda strange I get consistent answers when green doesn't exist.

I agree that brains produce the mind. That doesn't mean the brain is just physical.

No, it could be chock full of dozens of magical souls powered by unicorn farts for all we know. It's just that there's no reason to think there's anything more than the physical going on.

But why is the a subjective experience at all? Why aren't we all mindless robots.

Who knows? Possibly it's an evolutionary mistake or side effect. Maybe it has survival value. But isn't this a different question than "is subjective experience a non-physical process"?

Our brains can react to light, but it is our minds that see colour. How do we see colour if colour doesn't objective exist in the physical?

Since there are objective measures of color, this question is meaningless.

 

[KCfromNC]

So the question is, in a world is dead matter, how it is possible to conceptualize?

Since no one is saying that dead matter is conceptualizing anything, this question is moot. Everyone here agrees that brains are parts of living beings, not dead matter.

Because nothing physical is subjective.

Human thoughts and feelings are. Or at least, we have no reason to assume otherwise.

I'll get another example. Imagine that the most expert scientist on colour vision has lived all her life in a black and white room and has never let that room. As along as she stays in that rooms she will never know what it means to see red. All her knowledge of how the brain works will never teach her what red is.

Proof of this claim? Seems like to have to assume that there's more to the experience of red than brain function to believe this - which means that to have this demonstrate that monism is wrong you have to assume monism is wrong. That's more than a bit circular.

Because feel and experience are things that are undeniably real to any human. I can be 100% sure I see blue right now. Nothing else compared to the certainty of my own experience.

Research has shown this to be absolutely false. Our subjective experience is very often unreliable - look into placebos, psycho-acoustic effects, inducing false memories, experiments showing that our conscious minds aren't always reliable at reporting what the brain is doing, and so on.

Mindless humans could still identify food and water and robotically consume them for its programmed continued existence, but that doesn't explain why sight and sound come alive to us in experience.

Why we have subjective experience is a different question from how subjective experience arises from physical processes. Which is the mind/body problem you wish to discuss?

The universe is dark and cold (metaphorically), but strangely we feel.

Poetry can be entertaining, but it doesn't tell us much about the physical processes of human neurobiology.

What you measure isn't colour, what you are measuring is the frequency of the light. That doesn't explain where the colour comes from.

No, what you see isn't color, color is only something that dogs experience in their subjective minds. See, we can all just redefine terms at will to inject some sort of magic - doesn't make it real.