/sci/ - Science & Math

>>2639695

Do what every other notable philosopher has always done and just make up your own -ism that moves beyond current -isms.

My opinion is that the mind is something abstract that exists in a space separate from the physical world. The body is a physical set of matter that is bonded in a certain way. Somehow, our brain connects the two, sending sensory input one way and action commands the other way. I cannot prove this with evidence.

>>2639712

Interesting, yet a bit weird. I mean, how could something so far away keep a connection with ALL of our minds?

Also, do you guys think that when you die, your mind lives on?

Stop doing this type of philosophy. You could come up with an infinite number of systems which are consistent with facts and vaguely resemble the nebulous concept of mind. You will never know if you are right or if there is a single correct metaphysical stance on this topic.

>>2639743

Well, there IS an answer to it, however we'll never know because a bell won't go off as soon as someone gets the answer. However, there IS an answer.

If there wasn't an answer, the mind/body wouldn't be able to function, this having a reason to exist.

>>2639755

At least add some science though. Like the fact that there is still brain activity immediately after death.

Physicalist. The mind is part of the body.

>>2639794

Yeah, but even if that may be true, how long would that last? How would that even work?

Op, and the like, why using the word "mind"?
Just use soul, you hypocritical deluded morons.

>>2639799

Yea, as if that isn't pretty fucking vague. Pretty much no one except computer scientists are arguing anything else.

>>2639802

Because a mind and a soul isn't the same fucking thing, you idiot. Or are you some kind of idiot who doesn't believe his own mind exist?

>>2639695

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_naturalism

>>2639807

Ok, physicalist. Explain this.

If I'm eating chocolate, and I taste it, and you've never eaten chocolate, can you open my brain and find the physical matter that represents my taste for chocolate?

Physicalism = VERY flawed.

NEXT

>>2639810
As long as you separate the body from the """mind""" (and thus imply it doesn't IS the brain), you describe the concept of a soul.

You hypocritical deluded moron.

>>2639825

But this isn't a criticism for physicalism, but reductionism. Just because I can't explain your expression with pen and papper, doesn't mean physicalism is false.

A counter-argument; if dualism is correct, how can matter-matter and mind-matter react with each other? If this mind-matter has some sort of casual power on matter-matter, wouldn't that just make it into ordinary matter?

>>2639755

You assume far too much.

The intuition is bound to fail you when you attempt metaphysics. The only reason to discuss a topic such as this is to develop a different perspective of something that is immediate in our lives.

>>2639827

Nice strawman there, brah. The mind is part of the body, just like your left arm, but you don't say "why do you keep talking about the hand and not the body your morons" without looking like a complete tool yourself.

>>2639825
Your taste for chocolate is a pattern of neuron activation which is activated by chocolate related stimuli. Neuroscience has shown that everything about us goes on in the brain.

your argument = FLAWED

NEXT

>>2639843
Then the "mind" can be described as physical.

What the dicks is wrong with you?

>>2639842

So what, you're some kind of liberal relativist?

>>2639800

you can insert whatever philosophy you want, totally arbitrary. I'm just saying that it would be a step forward in terms of the scientific value of the discussion to try to fit a philosophical model to known experimental findings.

>>2639846

Ok then, show me the physical matter that represents my taste for chocolate..

>>2639848

Yea, and there's even a better way to describe the mind, by, you know, using the word "mind".

Or are you implying that brainstates = mindstates ?

Been sucking to many dicks lately?

>>2639853
>Your taste for chocolate is a pattern of neuron activation which is activated by chocolate related stimuli

It's like you're asking me where's the physical matter that represents 4chan. It's stored inside computers, but there's nothing non-physical about it.

>>2639853
obvious troll

>>2639825
With enough resources I could come very close. Imaging studies of you eating chocolate, combined with knowledge about storage and retrieval of memories (when you eat something you like, you retrieve and update your generalised representation of chocolate), could probably pinpoint the area of your chocolate memory. Everything else is a mix of control systems, motivation and reward systems.
A little simplistic, but not implausible.

>>2639860
What the fuck are you arguing for? Op tried to make a distinction between mental and physical, mind and body.

If you're not trying to make that distinction you are making a complete fool of yourself, because you are arguing about absolutely and completely nothing. "Argument against the elimination of mind as a descriptive term for the purposes of nuance" isn't useful in this scenario.

>>2639846

This is retarded. So if he has neurons firing off, and he tastes icecram, and I have different neurons firing of when I taste icecream, who is right?

Or how about animals? Can't a dog with another brain structure than me taste ice-cream?

>>2639871
HEY GUYS MEMORY ADDRESS 1040410501 ISN'T OCCUPIED WHEN I GENERATE TRIPCODES ON MY DESKTOP, BUT IT IS ON MY OTHER COMPUTER. DOES THAT MEAN ONE OF THEM ISN'T GENERATING TRIPCODES?!?!?!?!?

>>2639849

nihilist

I don't say the perspective is true as relativists do. That's far too dogmatic.

>>2639871
<-you

>>2639825
Worst argument I've ever read. Your brain likes sugar. Evolution designed it that way.

Anyway, even if you were right and we couldn't track liking the taste of chocolate to a physical part of the brain, that doesn't mean you can just make up whatever answer you like better as an alternative. Just because we don't know all the answers right now doesn't mean your pseudo-science pure guesswork theory involving the supernatural or metaphysics is the least bit supported by any evidence. If you're going to make claims of that nature, provide your evidence. Oh wait, you fucking have none. I can pull "theories" out of my ass too, but I'm sensible enough not to do that unless they are based on evidence.

>>2639871
Yes, analogical events can probably be drawn through brain states (although it may be more efficient to express it in terms of "tasting ice cream"). I'm doing the same thing in a car and a truck when I turn the steering wheel, but when I turn a child's toy steering wheel nothing different happens. Each mental experience is a unique but perhaps analogically similar event, exactly like every other physical event.

>>2639871

>>2639877

A physicalist will have to say "no, it can't, because if two brain states isn't the same, they dont' have the same experience".

>>2639883
well said

>>2639884
>>2639883
>>2639878
>>2639887
No, you guys isn't understanding, WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE HAVE THE SAME BRAIN

>>2639892

Why do you think that's a legitimate question?

>>2639892
...Because we're not all the same person...

>>2639871
>>So if he has neurons firing off, and he tastes icecram, and I have different neurons firing of when I taste icecream, who is right?

Both. Both of your brains receive action potentials generated by the taste receptors in your tongues. How these impulses are handled in your brains depends on a myriad of factors.

>>2639892
see
>>2639878

>>2639871

> Write this
> See everyone raging
> Wonder why
> Reread my post
> mfw

English ain't my first language,and I tried to make it as simple as possible. Anywhere, have a Wikipedia article about why it simply doesn't work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_physicalism#Criticism_and_replies

>>2639889
no

The brain is a collection of neurons that are activated in different scenarios in an organized, cascading and yet orderly manner. Ice cream stimuli could have a propensity to cause different reactions based on pathways formed (which we've found humans can do all through their lives), the general chemical state of the brain, memories, and the individuals general brain structure.

Your argument is essentially that in order for two people to taste something, they have to be the same person. This is clearly untrue if you just consider the computer analogy. Two different states of two different systems can process input in a similar way.

>>2639902
>Both of your brains receive action potentials generated by the taste receptors in your tongues
This isn't really wrong, but it still makes me flinch

>>2639919
Understood you fine. Your problem is just that you're not smart and can't analyze anything in a logical fashion.

Perhaps someone could point you to the part of your brain that is essentially your "stupid gland".

>>2639928
>>2639919
I think the problem is just the foreigners words.

It's pretty stupid to claim that ONE receptor in the brain will ALWAYS handle some experience and some experience only. There isn't a "hot" receptor, "cocoa" receptor, "cup" receptor" and a ton of other ones that link to the idea of hot cocoa or something, it's a myriad of signals and patterns that only have to be roughly equal to themselves, i.e, when you see hot cocoa, all the brain has to do is match it up with previous encoded information of hot cocoa, and if it matches, you have a memory, and if not, well you'll probably feel weird and confused and things.

>>2639928

>>2639923
Please do elaborate!

>>2639919
Those arguments deal with the criticisms of one type of physicalism as opposed to another view of physicalism. They're both physicalism.

Look bro, if you've got evidence to support that the mind is not based on physical phenomenon, please state your evidence. You can poke holes in the current views of physicalism all you want; the only thing you are accomplishing is slowly knocking down the evidence that is piled up for such a view, when you have done nothing to build your own argument up. We have no reason to suspect that everything in this universe is not the result of physical properties. Why assume differently for the brain?

Even if you somehow discredited all the evidence for physicalism, that would still only place your view on equal grounds with physicalism, regarding the level of evidence. At some point you'll have to suggest why YOUR theory should be accepted over another. And no, saying, "well theory X doesn't work in Y situation, therefore mine is correct!" Just because another theory is wrong, does not mean yours is instantly true.

tl;dr read Spinoza. His shit will rock your world.

"If consciousness (the mind) can exist independently of physical reality (the brain), one must explain how physical memories are created concerning consciousness. Dualism must therefore explain how consciousness affects physical reality. One of the main objections to dualistic interactionism is lack of explanation of how the material and immaterial are able to interact. Varieties of dualism according to which an immaterial mind causally affects the material body and vice-versa have come under strenuous attack from different quarters, especially in the 20th century. Critics of dualism have often asked how something totally immaterial can affect something totally material - this is the basic problem of causal interaction."

>>2639957

But I AM a physicalist; but that doesn't automatically means you support reductionism, and that's what I opposed; you can't say this and this mental state is this and this exact neuron, because then you'll end up with the identity theory of the mind.

You can't say that we've found out that tasting ice-cream IS this exact brainstate, because you'll have to throw out the chance of computers to be able to think as well, since they can't have brainstates identical to us. You can't even make a silocon replica of the human brain and hope It will work, if identity theory is correct.

>>2639943
It's just nitpicking. The action potential only exist across the membrane. You can't really say that the action potential travel from the pain receptor in your hand, to the interneuron, to the neuron connected to your brainstem, etc... Action potentials don't traverse the synapse, neurotransmitters on the presynaptic side trigger neuroreceptors on the postsynaptic side. If the sum of excitations in the axon hilloc reaches threshold, volt-gated sodium channels are opened and an action potential develops across the membrane.

>>2639902
give the impression that he doesn't really understand how neurons work. It could just be a semantic mistake.

/nitpic

>>2639989
Define qualia as an illusion and suddenly the identity theory of the mind does not appear that unreasonable.

>>2640020

Qualia isn't the biggest problem, it's that you have to say that silicon based brains, for some reason, wouldn't have minds, since they aren't the same sort of neurons that we have. Even if they're identical in every other way.

>>2640006
I know how synapses work, gap junctions don't change the fact that in most cases the brain receives signals that originates from a receptors. Whether a signal is electrical or chemical at a certain point in the neurological pathway it still travels towards the brain.

>>2640031
The only problem is in the definition of a mind.

>>2640095
but you said action potential, not signal.
I understood what you meant, but you used the terminology in a way that isn't really appropriate. /nitpic

>>2640006
I know how synapses work, gap junctions don't change the fact that in most cases the brain receives signals that originates from receptors. Whether a signal is electrical or chemical at a certain point in the neurological pathway it still travels towards the brain.

>>2640128
Shit! Did I just travel back in time?

>>2640095
is
>>2640139

>>2639874
Fuckin' Nihilists man!

>>2640149
I corrected a typo by deleting/reposting. Sorry about that. You are right about me being wrong in describing the whole process of neurotransmission as simply action potentials traveling across axons, however I cant help but facepalm a little by the nitpicking as the point I tried to make was that the brain receive electrochemical signals from receptors via the nervous system.

>>2640217
I'm not English BTW, that's why my language is so awkward.

>>2640217
>I cant help but facepalm a little
That's okay

>>2640222
>I'm not English BTW
Well, neither am I.

>>2639825
>>2639853
Yes. The orbitofrontal cortex is capable of distinguishing and elaborating the taste of food being consumed and it's ultimately the ofc that dictates when you are fed to satiety. Neurons can represent complex sensations using vector space.

bullshitist. it's all navel gazing obscurantist bullshit. the history of the concept of mind in this sense is caught up in medieval christianity. it's kind of related to soul or spirit. total nonsense. it's best to just ignore it.

Let me guess, OP.

You have an essay due today on Pluralism.

>>2640179
HOOOOOOOOOBBBBBBSSSSSSSSS

dualism exists as an idea only so they could get the church off of science's back by saying "clearly issues of morals, thoughts, etc. are separate from issues related to the physical world, and religion teaches us about morals and purpose things, so they should back the fuck off when we want to figure out how how fast shit falls towards the earth"

at its heart dualism is flawed because the mental can affect the physical (I think consciously to move my hand) and the physical can affect the mental (brain damage can have an affect on any mental faculties like motor control, emotions, modes of perception.)

type identity theory is right all others are wrong now GTFO!

All phenomena are mental. We are only ideas that exist in the mind of God. Prove me wrong faggots! Oh wait, you can't.

>>2641209
>a theory that is unproven and impossible to disprove is somehow valuable
Most people agree something so blatantly un-disprovable is pseudoscience

>>2641102
>>2641134
>>2641150
>>2641209
>>2641220

>Samefag trying to revive a dead thread by spouting shit nobody cares about

I think the mind is a projection of the brain.

>>2641209
see
>>2641240

prove that a disembodied mind can exist without a brain or that a mind or consciousness can in anyway be shown to predate a brain or spontaneously manifest itself in absence of a physical brain