Christopher Lord

I am going to take a big guess here and say that you can't really bend yourself to understand it, because you fear the possibility that you may be nothing but a collection of atoms (holding that we are anything else seems very vain to me, but thats just opinion). Materialisim is much simpler than a dualist position, there is real evidence for it (see 'lobotomy' or 'split-brain patients'), and best of all, it can be falsified (finding a 'soul' or a com-link to one would do the trick nicely)

The only down side to materialisim is that you have to accept that you are not a special being with a soul from an alternate demension, manifested on earth for some unknown reason. I imagine that steping to the realist position must be incredibly hard. Perhaps the comfort value (or vanity value) is too great to overcome?

In any event it makes for good discussions.

Clutch

Holy cow. If that's what you mean, your argument is simply dreadful.

Remember, you can't simply assume that mind and body are ontologically distinct; that's not an especially impressive argument against materialism. What we have uncontroversially that are distinct are two vocabularies, the question then being whether the referring expressions of these vocabularies pick out the same things. Materialism says yes; you say no.

Your argument, it turns out, is just this: The properties denoted by mentalistic idiom are not the properties denoted by the wide class of physicalistic idioms. And this is first-year spot-the-howler fodder, since there is no more familiar phenomenon than conceptually distinct but co-referring vocabularies. The phrase "the morning star" denotes an entirely different property than that denoted by the phrase "the evening star". But these are distinct properties of the same thing.

So there's the howler. The remaining alternative, which simply is the materialist thesis, is that there are different means of recognizing a single thing, and different vocabularies that exploit those different means. It's the blind men and the elephant; you, apparently, would conclude a priori that there must be as many different animals as there are different descriptions.

I recommend you read some of the introductory literature on the matter; JJC Smart's widely-anthologized "Sensations and Brain Processes" would be a good start.

Synaesthesia

Irrespective of whether or not the brain lacks some sort of fairy dust required for consciousness, one thing is totally and unambiguously clear: the brain is responsible for what we do.

It is only because of the brain's physiological makeup that we can feel empathy for a mourning person, feel pain at an injury, remember a thought we were having one second ago, pick up a toy or gossip about someone whom we treated like a friend only moments ago.

Brain damage, if localized, might disable only aspects of these abilities. We might, for example, loose the ability to recognize our own face in the mirror but still remember what our mother looks like(and vice versa.) Damage to the inner aspect of the frontal lobe may make us incapable of emotional connection to ourselves or the world- not depressed, just totally apathetic. Autism, a disorder when individuals have difficulty communicating, occurs when the aspect of our brain responsible for modelling the mental state of other people is malformed.

The fact is that you cannot show me anything that human beings can do without their brains. The workings of the brain are the necessary and sufficient conditions for all human thought and behavior.

[ January 28, 2002: Message edited by: Synaesthesia ]</p>

madmax2976

Filip still seems to be stuck on his "I can't understand how the brain does what it does so there must be something supernatural/mystical/meta-physical about it" argument.

First off Filip's analogies are flawed. He has notshown Theo how the printer works with his diagram. His diagram would only be a very simplistic representation of how he thinks the printer works. If he really wanted to show us how the printer works, then he should actually demonstrate the various mechanism's of the printer in operation. This would include the view of the rollers grabbing the paper (along with the motor that moves it complete with the magnetic field around the coils), the ink jets spraying the ink, the printhead "determining" the correct characters to print, and the actual operation of the logic circuits that run the whole thing right down to the switching of the transistors on the IC chips.

At least this seems to be what Filip is asking of others whenever he brings up his "mental image" examples. He wants to know "how" the brain does what it does, so I think its only fair to ask him for the same thing for any anaolgy he wishes to bring forth. If he will just show us the printers program in execution during the printing process this would be most helpful.

Now, I'm sure a neuroscientist could give Filip a simplistic representation of how the mind works in numerous areas as well. Of course we are just as limited by technology to be able to actually show how images are generated by a functioning mind. Filip seems to think this lack of ability means something, though I fail to understand why.
It appears Filip will continue to see fit to invoke the mystical until such time as someone can capture mental imaging activity and place it in his hand. It would follow that Filip also thinks we can grab on to a "running", or put a "seeing" in a box, or put some "flowing" into a paper bag, since they are all activities as well.

Filip, why not just admit the truth and be done with it? - You don't know how mental images are generated by the brain and you don't know what they are. There's certainly nothing wrong with saying "I don't know" to something. It seems to me to be a far more honest a position than invoking the mystical in the attempt to solve a mystery you aren't currently able to otherwise solve. And of course invoking the mystical/meta-physical doesn't answer your question anyhow. It's just the engagement of conjecture that would still leave your question - what is a mental image - wide open.

Filip Sandor

So wait a minute... you mean the mental image of a white cat that exists is in my mind is really qualitatively the same as the physical processes in my brain that it corresponds to??

Well gee... I must have missed that.

Could you point to the evidence one more time, for me? I have a little trouble 'grapsping' these things.. if you know what I mean.

Filip Sandor

Are you saying that we need a human brain to experience human bodily functions and mental phenomena..?

I don't know how to express my eagerness to agree with you Synaesthesia.

I have no doubt in my mind that you are right.

P.S. I am still waiting for your reply in the other forum.

[Edited for grammar]

[ January 28, 2002: Message edited by: Filip Sandor ]</p>

Theophage

Quoted material by Filip Sandor will be in bold:

The difficulty with the assumption that your thoughts are in your brain is that there is nothing in your brain that bears any qualitative resemblance to the mental 'objects' in your mind.


Really? I don't find this to be true. What is in my brain are neuron connections, patterns of neuron firing, and other chemical reactions. We agree on this, yes?

I say these are thoughts (or at least the external form of such; see below), thus, there is no qualitative difference between these things and thoughts. You, in saying that thoughts are qualitatively different, must think that thoughts are something else. Please explain what qualities thoughts have that these things in the brain don't have.

Now, I think it is true that thoughts are encoded information. Sort of like a picture on a hard drive is encoded. When we see something, the visual information gets encoded into thought (the brain patterns again). Our brains don't actually see the patterns of colored light that make a picture, all they "see" is the brain pattern created by the retina. But since our retinas have been doing this for us since birth, we really cannot tell the difference.

When we think of an image, we dig up that same pattern again. If we had a sophisticaed enough MRI we could probably see that specific pattern for that specific image whenever we thought of it. It wouldn't look like the image to the MRI of course, just like a .JPG file doesn't look like a picture when viewed in binary format. But to the brain itself (not to someone elses retina's and then their brain) it does "look" like the picture, since that is the only way it sees pictures anyway. Does this explain things a bit more?

[regarding what I'd said about conscious and unconscious parts of the mind]
Whenever I use the term mind I am referring to the sum of all the mental phenomena that is perceived by an individual (ie. thought, feeling, will, desire, etc.).

I personally don't believe that mental phenomenon (ie. thoughts, feelings, wills, desires, etc.) are conscious (or aware) of anything.

I think you misunderstood me here. When I say that there are conscious and unconscious parts of the mind, remember that I am saying that the mind is the function of the brain. In other words, there are functions of the brain which we are aware of (like what we're thinking about right now) and functions which we are not currently aware of (like heartbeat regulation, old memeories which we aren't currently thinking of, etc).

Certainly thoughts themselves are not conscious, I didn't mean to imply that at all. What is conscious is the conscious part of the mind.

Materialism just doesn't seem to make any sense.

Taking our ignorance on how thought and consciousness works, and labelling it "non-material" doesn't make it any less ignorant. Materialism says that however it works, it does so by physcial changes in the brain. Non-materialism says that however it works, it does so by changes in some non-material mind. Neither position inherently makes any more or less sense than the other. Well, to be honest, since Occam's Razor favors the materialist view, it ends up being the more reasonable (which is why I take it). Arguments from ignorance aren't really worth much...

Daniel "Theophage" Clark

Filip Sandor

Long time no see, how have you been?! I miss the all the intense debates we used to have.

Actually, Filip is stuck on his "Neuroscientists haven't found any physical evidence of the mind in the brain so there must be another explanation for the mind than the contradictory one that is provided by materialism" argument.

Filip also finds it rude that when one is conversing with another and they walk around the person as they speak. Filip takes this to be an indication that the individual talking past him, about him, is intimidated by him -- of course, Filip may be wrong.

Personally, Filip likes to look directly into the eyes of a person that he is having a conversation with and he appreciates it when people do the same.

It was only a hypothetical thought experiment, but to ease your mind, we can pretend I gave Theophage some special, X-ray vision glasses which he used to view the functioning printer... and he could look through the printer and see all the mechanisms at work, right down to the view of the little rollers grabbing the paper!

[The point of the argument remains the same.]

I admire your desperate effort to put words in my mouth in an attempt to mask or confuse what I had said madmax, but your making up things that I never said or asked is not going to help the actual materialistic position; it's just going to waste time that can be used to have a real debate -- where people don't put words in people's mouths.

Clutch

Yes, I've noticed. I suggest you pay closer attention this time.

The subjectively-accessed property of being a white-cat mental image is, for materialism, a property of a physical state. Of course, coming to know that physical state solely through its imagistic, first-person properties will not reveal its neurophysiological properties. One single object, with more than one property; hence different ways of describing and coming to know it.

By the same token, you can see something brown zip past, and your neighbour can hear something loud go past. Your thing was brown, his was loud; different properties; what a shock, if it turns out to have been the same object! Or, again, acquaintance with an object via its seen-in-the-morning property will not reveal that it also has seen-in-the-evening properties; hence one can labour under the misapprehension that the morning star and the evening star are two distinct objects.

What science does is establish a posteriori identities in many such cases. The materialist thesis is that such an identity holds between the mental and the physical; this motivates the empirical research programme of seeking to specify the relevant identities. The palpable dependence of mental states upon brain processes constitutes spectacular empirical support for the project in its early stages.

Your argument, however, is "Different properties, different objects". This remarkable principle shows, eg, that the son of Bush cannot be the president, since the property of being the son of Bush is not the property of being the president. It is a trivial sophism, but a correctable one, if you will bother to learn something from the large and accessible literature on this much-discussed problem.

Filip Sandor

Dear Theophage,

Let me just say, before I respond to your post, that amongst so much arrogance, I find it very nice that there are at least one or two individuals who respect me and my beliefs by not manipulating my words and claiming I have said things which I have not said.

This makes it much more enjoyable for me to articulate full and detailed responses to you.

Yes, I have no doubt, as there are numerous (even thousands) of documented) scientific studies now which indicate this to be the case and I do follow the <a href="http://www.hhmi.org/senses/" target="_blank">work of neuroscientists</a> at the <a href="http://www.hhmi.org/" target="_blank">Howard Hughes Medical Institute</a> as well as other, reliable sources. I like to keep somewhat up to date on the lates findings.

This may be somewhat difficult since I don't know how to describe the qualities of any thoughts in physical terms -- I can however tell you that thoughts are real and that they possess qualities such as tangibility and temporal existence (existence extended in what we call 'time') and I can also tell you that they possess unique qualities to them, which are not possessed by the material 'code' in the brain that they correspond to. I can be sure of this through introspective analysis of my own thoughts, relative to what is happening in my brain.

Of course, I base this knowledge on faith to some degree; the faith that neuro-scientists are telling the truth about the findings of their studies and that their patients possess minds as I do -- even though it cannot be conclusively 'proven' at this time.

This only seems to drive support for the long standing, scientific notion that 'brain mechanics' are at least partially responsible for and/or involved in the manifestation of thoughts and other mental phenomena, but the actual mental phenomena or this 'inner form' of the material code, as you might have it remains 'unseen' as it is. Except of course, by the 'possessor' of the mind in which it exists.

Your analogy to computers does raise some very intriguing questions though..

What is information??

Are mental images 'encoded' in the computer as well as in the brain...?

Synaesthesia made some points in similar analogies, which also raised some of these same questions on <a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000287&p=9" target="_blank">page 9</a> of one of the longest and most recent (still ongoing) threads on the debaet over materialism at the <a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi" target="_blank">JREF Forum</a>. I hope you look into mine and Synaesthesia's posts (on <a href="http://www.randi.org/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=4&t=000287&p=9" target="_blank">page 9</a>) there becuase we cover some of these fundemental questions in detail; looking at them from several different angles (there are only about 7-8 posts to read, all of them are between me and Synaesthesia).

Perhaps this is because the latter functions of the brain don't manifest as 'thought forms' and hence, are not perceivable to us.

Well actually, what I was trying to point out is that I view the mind as the sum of all the mental phenomena, all the mental 'parts' if you prefer, that one individual perceives at any given moment. I think we are aware of the mind, but since the it is only the sum of unconscious mental phenomena (ie. thoughts, feelings, will, desire, etc.) I don't believe it or any part of it is aware as we are (of it) -- this is of course only according to my definition of the mind.

Many people will have a different definition for the mind than 'the sum of all mental phenomena (excluding the experience of)'.

As for what the perceiver the mind or the I is.. well, that is a whole <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=56&t=000019" target="_blank">other debate</a> which I started here a few months ago, but which didn't quite make it to the press.

[ January 28, 2002: Message edited by: Filip Sandor ]</p>