James T

This was intended as a reductio ad absurdum demonstration of the fallacy of your statement. I only implied the demonstration of the fallacy, thanks for completing it .

froggy

I type as I go along, 2 hours later I got confuse by my own handywork. So dudes if you get confuse as well don't be too surprise, welcome to my boat.
I decided to stop before it get too long and roaming everywhere. Anyway what you see is what you get, live with it and don't whinge, thanks.
------------------
This is hard. The soul is usually the common word to use but the "self" is more appropriate. Unless someone comeback from the dead and tells us what it is all about-this kind will always end up in controversy as what is mind, what is consciousness and what is awareness, soul, self etc.
In the Qur'an there is only one verse which clearly states there was one person who cameback to life after death 100 years earlier, but no name is given as who he was, of course the intepretation named somebody or anybody.
The next verse right after that it was Abraham who asked his lord how the dead comeback to life. The reply was about taming four birds (or one bird cut into 4 pieces?) and place each one on the hill. He said those bird/birds will respond to the call with speed. That is how the dead comeback to life.
The way I understand this, to comeback to life it must be complete made up of 4 parts as a single body, less than that will never make it.
(Chapter 2:258, 259)
There are books about NDE (near death experience) where few of those who experienced it remembered some activities occuring while the heart were inactive. If the heart is not working than the brain also cease from working, yet there was clearly still active in few cases of those patients. The pros and cons have their say about it:

Raymond Moody is sure that NDEs are evidence of consciousness existing separately from the brain. He thinks that NDEs prove the existence of life after death. Skeptics, on the other hand, believe that NDEs can be explained by neurochemistry and are the result of brain states that occur due to a dying, demented, or drugged brain. (from here)

Prophet Muhammad also talking to the deads in the hadith, about 3 days after the battle:

The Prophet looked at the people of the well (the graves of the pagans killed in the Battle of Badr) and said, "Have you found true what your Lord promised you?"
Somebody said to him, "You are addressing dead people."
He replied, "You do not hear better than they, but they cannot reply."

The Mind is the most common word, but without memories will it be worthy to return to life? (resurrected). If I were resurrected, yet I can't remember anything about my past than what kind of ressurection is this? Many people claimed as the reincarnation of certain personalities in the past but they don't remember anything.
From this I think the mind or consciousness or whatever, without memory they are as good as useless to discuss. Memories must be the ultimate of our existance today as proof for the future life. Me or you or anyoneelse have no right to claim about the past unless we remember that life in the past.
To me consciousness and memory is inseparable while the mind is an abstract that describes the activities of the memory storages, the mind is part of consciousness.
When death come the mind is no longer exist but he is aware or conscious of the surrounding activity yet can not respond to it. (approving or resisting)

Chris Porter

I say it's an item vs. process difference, like the term "digestion" vs "intestine"

Well for me it is, anyway. Mind is to brain as digestion is to intestine. Thinking is to mind as digesting is to digestion. All thinking and all thoughts are process terms, they are identifying an action that takes time, like the term 'run'.

I think this is not a common way of looking at it, but for me, it clears up a lot of issues of ambiguity.

Darth Dane

Afaik, we cannot prove existence outside consciousness, neither can we prove consciousness.

UnderStudy

I completely disagree and I will state the reasons why I uphold such a disagreement.

There is nothing abstract about the mind in the same sense that there is nothing abstract about the brain. There seems to be a division policy in place within the head. There is no way any human is conscious of or has access to all their emotions, previous memories or the ability to focus on everything at the same time. With this having been said we can easily realise the brain does contain all or most of the previous memories of a human and we can easily propose the brain has access to all (or most) previous feelings, good or bad.

However this is not the mind. Although the mind resides within the brain it has a higher function than simple brain automata. The mind has access to and processes a subset of the memory capacity at any one time and when the mind is in this mode one becomes conscious of the memory. The very same argument can be applied to feelings or sentiments,

With the ability of the mind to focus, the mind can therefore switch off things the brain proposes one should process. I have had this experience many a time where the automata of the brain due to some (unwanted) experience and its patterned processing power, tries to influence me to continue thinking about the experience. However I use the power I can muster with my mind to circumvent the influence of the automatic brain.

There seems to be two of us then, something trying to tell me what to do, and a conscious force which realises it is better for me to ignore, evade and find a better mental action to follow.

In concluding, it is simply folly to relate to the masses there is no basic difference between mind and brain and this folly results in a lazy brain because of its deterministic flavour. As such my disagreement stands and I must simply say that you have engaged in a facade instead of philosophy

Twyll The ChyllTyran

there is, of course, no difference between mind and brain... the brain is the mind.

your confusing the mind with the soul...

PEACE

y_feldblum

For the most part, you are correct.

First, note that the conscious mind is not deterministic. You didn't say anything either way. But the conscious mind is volitional (has free will), and volition is not compatible with determinism. Determinism is not true, though causality is true in its Aristotelian form. I just want to knock people over the head with that again.

Second, the subconscious part of the brain (which includes everything except for the conscious mind) runs automatically and deterministically, but is under the complete control of the conscious mind as and when the conscious mind chooses to exert that control. You said that, but I want to hit people over the head with that too. When you see something you don't like, your subconscious kicks in and feeds you with negative emotions. It does the same thing in animals, causing the animals to run or hide or attack. But the conscious mind can override the automatic emotions by looking at the facts, say, and coming to a different conclusion than the subconscious did. And the conscious mind has the ability to change the automatic reaction of the subconscious mind, so that similar events induce some other emotion. Obviously, this ability is not like snapping your fingers: it takes time and effort, and one must learn how to use it.

There are not two minds. The subconscious is not a mind. The subconscious is simply the thing that automates perception->reaction.

y_feldblum

The mind is not the brain. Why would you say it is? Do you have any evidence for that assertion?

RED DAVE

From y_feldblum:
1) Do you consider the unconscious (the proper term) to be part of the mind.

2) Where did you get this definition: "the thing that automates perception->reaction." I suspect you made it up.

RED DAVE

BillyTheKat

If the mind is not deterministic, how come it gets as drunk as I do when I get drunk, and where does it go when I go to sleep? Do embryos have minds?

How does the subconscious know which emotions to feed you?