Thanks Statik. I don’t consider myself a property dualist, so maybe if there’s a bit of conversation we can sort out some things.
What I’m trying to get at here is the incoherent idea that brain precedes mind (I’m not sure what else “gives rise to” could mean, if it didn’t occur in linear time). No matter what kinds of chemical reactions take place, there must be some point in time where mind arises, according to this description. But if some particular brain state “gives rise to” some particular mental state, did it exist prior to the mental state? If so, why did it exist for even the briefest of moments without the corresponding mental state arising? But if they arose simultaneously, on what basis do we determine that the brain state is primary, the mental state secondary? This is obviously just a sketch of a line of reasoning, but the crux of it is that we can’t separate brain from mind (as materialists do when they claim that “brain gives rise to mind”), yet we can’t say they are identical because they present differently, and most importantly, they function differently. Or more accurately perhaps, they are names for different ways of functioning. And without bringing in realism as a sidetrack, when two things function differently, this just is what makes us describe them as two different things.
I can see why you say that, but I don’t think I am. I’m simply saying that the concept “reality” only makes sense relative to previously established (or assumed) criteria. I started a thread on substance here, though it’s a little bit unconventional (some talk about faith, etc. in there). I’m basically just not sure how the concept provides any meaningful criteria, by which we can judge the ontological status of various phenomena. I think it makes more sense to judge phenomena by their function and use.
Thank you.
I’m not sure if I was saying that, but I like it! About identity, I meant that it still makes sense to talk about mind and body in terms of interactionism. From one point of view we can talk about A supervening on B, from another we can talk about B supervening on A. A and B move together, whether in harmony or not. But B is not merely another name for A.
I just tried, but I deleted what I wrote. I’m having a hard time explaining that at the moment. But it’s not important.
Arguments for primacy of the physical: we can have a brain without a mind, but we have no evidence for a mind without a brain. Introducing alcohol to the bloodstream (and hence the brain cells) seems to affect our mental states, but thinking drunkenly doesn’t cause alcohol to appear in our bloodstream. Or more concretely, a lobotomy will alter ones mind, whereas a mind that thinks like a lobotomised person won’t physically separate the frontal lobes.
Of course, this shows that it is not the brain itself that causes mental events, but the motion of charges (through the pathways defined by the brain). Just as a city doesn’t cause traffic jams, but certain cities are more prone to gridlock than others.
The reason that problems arise is that brain and mind are different categories. Humans interacting in a certain way give rise to a book club. You can point to each of those people, at various times of the day and night, but you can’t point to the book club. The book club is a way of describing the interactions of people (and paper), and it has its own grammar distinct from the physical world; we don’t need to be book-club dualists or see a plane of book clubs parallel to and intervening on the plane of humans in certain places, nor believe that the book club is something more than just the people and the books - we just need to be aware that we’re talking about things in a different way.
Similarly, we don’t need to conclude that because scientists have observed a dozen people sitting together talking, that we’ve found evidence for book clubs
Would it still be a computer in the sense we use the word for a working one or would it be some other kind of thing, at least while it was not working?
there is no cure to suffering? ofcourse there is, suffering is caused by associations memories, to eliminate suffering you need to erase them, so drink alcohol drugs are good aswell i heard.
I don’t think it make sense to think of it like this. We have to give an account for the existence of brains, and we can’t do that without giving a parallel account of the existence of minds. It is the same story told from two different perspectives. Just as with the computer we can’t give an account of computers without also giving an account of what they are for - what they do, how they are used, why they were invented, etc. A broken computer says nothing, ontologically.
These are examples how differences in how brain>mind versus mind>brain approaches function. This is central to what I’m saying. You can’t perform brain surgery by thinking really hard. You can’t change your attitudes and relationships by undergoing brain surgery.
both of these things are wrong. thinking can change neural wiring. changes in the brain from external sources (lobotomy for example) can change attitudes and relationships (after the surgery anyway)
Hmm, yes I agree. But I guess we’re saying somewhat different things. I mean, it’s a different kind of brain surgery. The results will be different. You really don’t change your relationships in a unified and extensive way just by having surgery. I go back to my aspirin example.
“You really don’t change your relationships in a unified and extensive way just by having surgery.”
I think Phineas Gage did, except for instead of surgery it was a lot of iron through the brain. For at least a few months, probably longer, his personality and subsequently the relationships he had with coworkers, neighbors, etc changed dramatically. There is controversy as to when (or if) he ever returned to normal but the primary sources seem to indicate that there was a period of time where the injury significantly altered his behavior without diminishing (to the same degree) neural function.
I guess that’s not what I’d consider “unified and extensive”. Sure, a dramatic change changes everything. And such a change can even be of a positive sort. But to be of a constructive sort, a person has to more or less unify intention, outlook, emotional health, thought, action, etc.
The idea was that his ability to form intentions was significantly impaired. Inhibitory functions of the frontal lobes were fucked, and it took him a long time to regain control. The point being that it isn’t a far cry from what you just suggested, given that it was done by launching a tamping rod in the general direction of some guy’s face. You have to imagine that with some tinkering and scalpels instead of sticks we might have some greater changes, were we unethical enough to try them.
Are you suggesting that we could create good citizens out of, say, hardened criminals through tinkering with their brains - were we unethical enough to try this? It seems important that you have been describing change of the degraded sort - towards death, in a way. Which makes sense given the injury.
