Is The Mind The Brain?

[Liquideye]

I find this a fascinating topic to discuss. This is my first time here at Volconvo, and i couldnt see an issue about mind and body anywhere in the philosophy section, i realise there is alot to discuss on this issue, but i would like to hear anyones say.

I am interested in finding people's real opinions on this.

General problems to get people started:

The brain is a material thing, and the mind is a spiritual thing. It is clear that the mind and body interact, however spirit and matter do not interact. This is where Descartes forumlated his Cartesian Dualism. This is probably common knowledge to everyone here, but i needed somthing to get myself going in my views / opinions.

There have been several schools of philosophy who have tried to deal with this problem. Behaviourists, Materialists, Eliminativists...etc. Which do you feel has the stronger argument?

This topic also leads into artificial intelligence, and how do we distinguish ourselves from a computer programmed to react like a human (Turing Test - on the AI website i believe)

I'll calm down before i get ahead of myself, but i would be greatly interested into hearing what everyones views are.

-Ian

[RebelWithanAK]

The 'mind' is a concept embellished by romantics who don't care to admit that our consciousness is nothing more than a series of electric synapses fed by a machine whose sole purpose is to support itself.

[Waychel]

I do not believe the mind to be a spiritual thing, but a chemical one (the brain). I believe sprituality itself is a manifestation/product of the mind.

On the topic of AI, a machine is programmed to react a certain way. Human beings are chemical, we react out of our emotions (fear, want, anger, posession) and general nature. Philosophy itself is what leads to the repression of these characteristics, as we are disciplined and taught proper etiquette at an early age. Despite this, sometimes our emotions get the better of us, and we will react with anger or violence for example. A machine is not chemical, it does not have emotions, so it would always react as it was told to react in the situation it interprets itself as being in - no differently.

These are all just my personal philosophies, however.

[Liquideye]

Your basically denying that we have any subconscious "mental" phenomena Waychel.

And as for the Artificial Intelligence philosophy you have, are humans not just programmed to react in a certain way? Like we see other people jump back, and cry out when they are burnt, so do we not just react that way from seeing this? Are computers any different? Why cant Fear, Anger simply be programmed into a computer?

My immediate answer to this is "Qualia"
Qualia are the "raw feels" we have, which a computer can never have. We feel pain, and react a certain way, but there is somthing else going on inside ourselves which we are aware of. We cannot deny this feeling

I am getting the impression you are leaning more towards Eliminativism Waychel. That all "spiritual" things should be eliminated in terms of scientific, empirical knowledge.

I come back at this by saying imagine a subject hooked up to a machine where we can see exactly what is happening in the mind (chemically, neurologically etc) at the time the subject says he is pain. The scientist can later on learn to read every thing the subject is experiencing by examining the brain. This agree with your point. However, imagine the subject is lying, they may be saying they are in pain and could actually, be mistaken. This could be for any number of reasons: Subject is lying, under the influence of drugs and perceptions are altered, they could be mentally handicapped where they are not totally aware of what is happening. Doesnt this totally deny the fact that the "spiritual entity" that is the mind is actually not a manifestation conjured up by the chemical brain?

BTW, i am not on any side, i just love a good philosophical debate :D

[Waychel]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Liquideye,)
Your basically denying that we have any subconscious "mental" phenomena Waychel.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

I believe sprituality itself is a manifestation/product of the mind.

I am not denying it, I simply attribute it to being a product of the mind - either of our own conscious or subconscious invention. There is a big difference between not assosciating something with mysticism (instead, the physical), and denying it as a manifestation exists altogether. =p

[Impenitent]

mind? prove you aren't a brain in a vat...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-in-a-vat

knowledge is an impossibility, there is no necessary connection...

[RebelWithanAK]

Maybe with you knowledge is an impossibility. The rest of us have eyes.

[fedfem]

Yes, what Rebel said!

[Impenitent]

your eyes give you knowledge? of what? the first layer of phenomenoa? when, where and for how long? ask kant about your eyes giving you knowledge...

http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/foldop/foldoc...thing-in-itself

[RebelWithanAK]

Well, if you really insist on walking around with your eyes closed, I'm not one to stop you. Who knows? You might even see just how fragile your brain is...

[Waychel]

Whoa.. I think someones watched a little too much of The Matrix. ;p

[Geoff332]

There are several threads to this debate -- some of which we've covered in other threads.

1. The origin of consciousness (the mind) -- materialism v dualism.
2. The nature of intelligence -- computation v connectionist v symbolic v a bunch of others (and, yes, I know these aren't necessarily mutally exclusive options)
3. The nature of knowledge -- basically Kant v Ayer (for want of a better option -- I can't think of a decent epistemology since positivism that required on objective certainty)
4. There's a hint of science as the priviledged source of knowledge.

So, my answers:

1. I tend towards a more complex materialism -- that is consciousness emerges from material process (al la Searle or Dennett).
2. No-one, to my knowledge, has adequately demonstrated that cognition/intelligence is exclusively computational, so I am not convinced of this. If pushed, I would adopt a connectionist/symbolic framework. But I couldn't tell you if this was an actual discription of how cognition works, or a useful metaphor for understanding human cognition.
3. Kantian all the way -- we can never be certain of anything outside of ourselves (Rebel's arguments are the standard niave responses to Kant/Hume that are entirely falicious and don't actually come close to touching the core of Kant's philosophy). However, certainty isn't necessary for most practical situations.
4. I think I've hinted at this elsewhere. I do limit science to the material realm (there is no logic of science for uncovering non-material knowledge -- using science to uncover spiritual truths is like using a hammer to put in a screw: it might work, but not very well). There are two important provisos on that: i) science is incapable of dealing with anything non-material; ii) science is not the only valid method for acquiring knowledge.

[RebelWithanAK]

I'm not a philosopher, and while I realize that our world is only known through our senses, it is stable enough - and regular enough - that we can assume with an acceptable certainty rather fundamental truths about it. It's not like the truck ain't gonna hit Impenitent if he shuts his eyes.

[Geoff332]

Certainty acceptable to whom?

To you, obviously from your comments-- but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to anyone else.

As I have said, I don't dispute this when dealing with clearly material phenomena. But when you're dealing with phenomena that are less clearly material -- such as socio-political structures, ethics, aethetics, epistemology and (importantly for this discussion), consciousness.

When you make statements like "our consciousness is nothing more than a series of electric synapses" then I don't consider sensory information even close to an acceptable level of certainty.

[Waychel]

Socio-political structures have their origins in the tribesmen and leaders of primitive man, as we have always saught leaders or elders. This is not phenomena, as most animals operate in packs or groups themselves.

Ethics are inherent to possession. The first ethics ever conceived by mankind were of respect to one another's property or territory, or rather, the wrath of one party upon the other that treaded upon them. This too is not phenomena, but something we see in the animal kingdom as well.

Aesthetics are as primal as you can go, as our initial attraction to the opposite sex for example stems from the want or need to reproduce.

I do not see how any of these are examples of phenomena.

[RebelWithanAK]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (Geoff332,)
Certainty acceptable to whom?

To you, obviously from your comments-- but that doesn't mean it's acceptable to anyone else.

As I have said, I don't dispute this when dealing with clearly material phenomena.  But when you're dealing with phenomena that are less clearly material -- such as socio-political structures, ethics, aethetics, epistemology and (importantly for this discussion), consciousness.

When you make statements like "our consciousness is nothing more than a series of electric synapses" then I don't consider sensory information even close to an acceptable level of certainty.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

I am, of course, referring to the material world. Everything else is a man-made sociological construct and thus up to interpretation depending on who is interpreting it and how their brain's physical connections have formed and what emotional state they are in when they think about it. I don't believe in 'spirituality,' except as just such a construct placed on top of physical emotions. Likewise, I see the 'mind' as synapses, traceable by the likes of EEG scans. The certainty is acceptable to me, and well enough to modern science to track and examine cases of epilepsy and other malfunctions of the mind.

As such, I don't believe I am due part of the 'naive' group you've placed me into, because I see the answer as having taken a wrong step in replying to the question. The question, as I saw it, was "how does our consciousness work, as related to the physical mass of our grey matter?" and the answer was attacking it from the wrong direction, by first starting with a sociological contruct: Spirituality. That's like a two-dimensional being trying to explain three dimensions. It's simply impossible.

[Geoff332]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
That's like a two-dimensional being trying to explain three dimensions.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>But if the mind is not entirely material (or not directly material), then you will never be able to explain it. But you never said that. You simple took a metaphysical position and chose (without giving any reason) to disregard any alternatives. That is why I called it niave.

Now, you have given a reason -- a methodological reason for adopting a metaphysical position. Translated: we aren't able to directly or easily measure this, so we'll assume it doesn't exist. That's fairly normal for science, but it's very bad philosophy.

It's only the wrong direction if you start by assuming it's the wrong direction. It's that assumption that I called niave. Given that you've reaffirmed it, I stand by that characterisation.

[RebelWithanAK]

Like I said, I'm not a philosopher. I chose to disregard explanations based on sociological constructs because they were created by the very item in question - the mind. That's like trying to explain the origin of iron by going to your local car dealership. You'd be relegating yourself to another entire set of assumptions and restrictions on the definition and you wouldn't even know how you were lacking.

That said, I believe philosophy poorly equipped in explaining how our brains work towards giving us consciousness. I believe it's best served explaining how our consciousness, individually or collectively, invents or alters or destroys societal institutions of all shape and manner. I believe it already assumes a link between mind and brain or it invents paradoxes to cover the field. (Can you see your own brain, bla bla bla)

Just because science is not advanced enough to understand that "this spark means that" except in a general sense based on where it's found and the visible reaction of the person in question (*bzzt* ouch!) - not to mention that everyone's mind is wired differently - doesn't mean that there is some inherent mysticism involved in how our minds work. I seriously believe you underestimate the breadth of our scientific knowledge; I sincerely doubt you'll find anything divine in our brains.

[Geoff332]

Language is a social construct, do we disregard anything based on that? Then we have the absolute gem. Science (as a disciplin) is a social construct. Should we disregard anything based on that? Oh, hang on, you've said that science is important. But then you said that we shouldn't use social constructs to explain material things... isn't this a paradox?

If you disagree, explain to me how science is not a social construct.
</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
I believe it's [philosophy] best served explaining how our consciousness, individually or collectively, invents or alters or destroys societal institutions of all shape and manner.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>What you've just described is sociology, not philosophy. If that's all you think philosophy is, then we have very, very little that we can talk about.

I never had you pegged as a hard-core reductionist, but nevermind that.

[RebelWithanAK]

Well, I may not be a philosopher, but I am a sociologist. =p

The discipline of science is a sociological construct, yes, and it is imperfect in that it subjectivizes the act of direct observation. But, its construction is based upon limiting as severely as possible the amount of process - the subjectivity that distance the result from the observation. As such, the methodology is only important in observing and understanding directly the material world. If we changed our hypotheses, the material world does not change with them. The construct is based entirely (or as close to entirely as possible) on external information.

Philosophy is wrong because it is indirect. It seeks to define sociological constructs based on the observation of other sociological contructs. Behaviorism, Linguistics, Sociology, all these are sociological constructs based on sociological constructs, and as such add layer upon layer of subjectivity, assumptions and restrictions that dilute the matter at hand. How else can one come to the conclusion that the workings of the mind are "spiritual things"? That imbues upon the field of Spirituality a form of objectivity that it simply does not possess.