Can anyone make any sense of this argument

[RedYellow]

When he finds thoughts disembodied from brains, let me know.

This, and this:

I have 55% of a thought all the time

:lol:

Anyway I've been thinking recently about how well the refutation of mind/body dualism is pretty much sufficient to cut down the whole tree of the 'god argument,' as I call it. At the core of theism is the idea that intelligent consciousness is THE essential property of reality. But everything we know about mind tells us that it doesnt do anything that the brain isn't responsible for. If a brain isn't necessary for intelligence, then why do we have a brain, why must it be so complex to function as it does, etc? Mind isn't an essence, it is a function of a machine, and it must be broken down to smaller parts to be understood: Thought, emotion, reaction, memory, intention, knowledge.

It's like saying that all our motorcycles need parts to function as they do, yet somewhere there must be an 'essential' motorcycle that is all just one solid piece and yet can do everything that motorcycles can do, and more. And nobody can ever ride it. :evil:

 

[Laurens]

He made the following claim:

I'm arguing that the self doesn't have parts, but the brain does.

To which I responded:

Can you define the self?

I personally think that the self is made up of different parts. Memories make up part of who we are, yet we can still have that part of our 'self' removed and still be said to have a self. Beliefs make up another aspect of who we are, yet I can change beliefs without having to change my memories, or other aspects of myself. A large part of myself is defined by my interactions with other people and the associations I have with them, yet I could suffer a stroke and lose my ability to recognise the faces those who are special to me, yet I am still me despite having that part of my self disabled. Another aspect of my 'self' is my body image, yet I can develop a disorder in which my self image is affected (anorexia for example) and this doesn't other aspects of my self. All this points to a self which is a conglomerate of different aspects, which is entirely consistent with the view that my self is defined by interactions between different parts of my brain rather than being some abstract indivisible entity which is channelled through my brain.

Do you accept that your memories make up an aspect of your self? If so then what happens to someone who develops severe memory loss? Surely this represents someone who loses an aspect of their self, showing that the self is in fact a conglomerate of parts rather than an indivisible whole.

 

[Anachronous Rex]

Have you pointed out to him the demonstrable fact that the brain can be seen to make decisions several seconds before we are consciously aware of them?

How does that fit in with this notion of separate "self"

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

Can't split the personality?
What about Split Brain patients?

 

[Laurens]

Can't split the personality?
What about Split Brain patients?

Well I initiated the discussion by linking this:



And asking how he explains it.

Have you pointed out to him the demonstrable fact that the brain can be seen to make decisions several seconds before we are consciously aware of them?

How does that fit in with this notion of separate "self"

I haven't raised that, but I shall, thanks for that.

 

[Demojen]

This one time, I thought and then it hit me.

How can anyone postulate the existence of an independant self? How....self-centered.

The only resolution for this cognitive dissonance is that there is no self beyond the mind. People need to stop clinging to their metaphysics. It's not science. It's the scientific method taken to absurd levels.

 

[Leçi]

Some people neglect one side, like their thoughts are only 50%

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I think his most basic problem is simply that he's thinking of a "thought" as a very real and distinct "thing"...

However, how he makes the connection from a thought being an indivisible, non-physical "thing" to saying that we are not the same as our brains is a complete non-sequitur. There isn't even an analogy between an individual thought and an entire personal identity.

The thing is that pretty much all mind-brain dualists fail miserably to recognize how a thought is actually defined in a monist or scientific framework. The idea that a thought is "indivisible" applies even from a scientific standpoint... the reason being that a thought is simply not a "thing" at all. The guy who made the original argument, as a dualist, goes from saying that a thought is not physical to saying that therefore non-physical planes of existence are real. Indeed, scientists don't think of a thought as a "thing", but merely an abstraction by which we refer to a collective of cooperative processes. The reason that a thought is indivisible is simply that these processes can still function so long as the brain still functions. Brain damage, likewise, doesn't eliminate thought itself, but merely affects the process of thinking on a qualitative level.

Even if you remove portions vital to some specific brain functions -- for instance, hemispherectomy or split-brain patients can never be able to perform music because it is apparently a necessarily global cross-hemisphere process -- it doesn't mean that no brain processes of any kind can occur, so of course, dividing the brain does nothing insofar as "dividing thoughts." Instead you basically end up with different thoughts and some old ones simply cease to come forth.

It seems he doesn't even entertain the possibility of viewing a thought as an abstraction. If he had, he would have realized that claiming a thought to be indivisible proves precisely nothing.

I'd like to know what this guy thinks about say, hemispherectomy patients or split-brain patients, and how he thinks there is a change to the "mind"? If he uses the common dualist rationalization, which is to say that the brain is the physical conduit to the non-physical mind, how exactly that works, and how you would determine that to be any different from minds being an abstraction of brain function? How exactly would one distinguish one from the other based on the end results and observations of brain function?

 

[DepricatedZero]

The brain is well outside my area of expertise, but as I understand it a thought is an electrical impulse right?

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

The brain is well outside my area of expertise, but as I understand it a thought is an electrical impulse right?

As well as I understand it, more or less yes.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

I was discussing the topic 'you are not your brain' with a theist recently and their argument was this:

You cannot remove 55% of a thought, but you can have 55% of a brain. The reason you can't take away 55% of a thought is because they are non-physical, but the brain is physical, therefore you are not your brain.

I'm kinda stuck on what he means by the fact that you can't quantify a thought in a percentage and why this means its non-physical. I can't say that this post is 48% long, that doesn't mean its not physical, I can't say I had 39% sleep last night etc. To me 55% of a thought makes no sense and doesn't prove anything. Am I right?

His argument sounds like a variation of YesYouNeedJesus' in his Laws of Logic thread where he uses "non-physical" to mean metaphysical, rather than allowing for the "abstract" meaning.

Perhaps the first question should be "What is a thought?".

It could be defined as the end result of a bubbling-up of a cascade of unconscious processes within the brain, which reached a "tipping point", to become a "conscious thought": the summit of a mountain, as it were.

And then there's the "train of thought" - where each "conscious thought" is itself the summit in a range of mountains of unconscious processes.

Cascade Mountains!

Given the plethora of unconscious processes involved, one could well say that you could "remove 55%" of a thought - as long as one was referring to the underlying, unconscious processes: whether one would reach the "tipping point" to produce a "thought", as he thinks of it, is another matter.

As has been pointed out in the "Laws of Logic" thread, physical processes can result in non-physical phenomena (gravity, electricity and magnetism are all "non-physical" results of physical processes).

Thoughts are the result of electro-biochemical processes in the brain.

To assume that a non-physical "thought" can only be the result of a non-physical environment (the metaphysical => the soul => God (which is at what he's aiming)) is a fallacy.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Laurens]

Dragan Glas,

Thanks for that response, that was very interesting and helpful

Laurens

 

[Laurens]

I did make the following argument in a response to this guy, I'm not sure how sound it is though.

His argument rests upon the assertion that non-physical things must have non-physical causes.

My argument is thus: Surely this logic must work the other way around also; physical things must have physical causes.

This negates non-physical things being caused by the physical, and physical things being caused by the non-physical.

If that is the case then the physical universe cannot have been caused by a non-physical God.

 

[ShootMyMonkey]

I did make the following argument in a response to this guy, I'm not sure how sound it is though.

His argument rests upon the assertion that non-physical things must have non-physical causes.

My argument is thus: Surely this logic must work the other way around also; physical things must have physical causes.

This negates non-physical things being caused by the physical, and physical things being caused by the non-physical.

If that is the case then the physical universe cannot have been caused by a non-physical God.

I suspect that your adversary's intellectual capacity is poor enough that this may work.

However, just to play devil's advocate here, I think the actual case here is that the argument need not necessarily rest on non-physical causation of non-physical things, but rather that non-physical things must exist in some non-physical manner or non-physical domain. However, the fact that the domains are different doesn't preclude the possibility of substance from two separate domains interacting in some way, though a mechanism by which that is possible is yet to be established.

And the example I'm sure one would bring up in this case is the idea that the brain is the physical attachment point of the non-physical mind. Or at least that non-physical minds and souls can still occupy physical bodies. So the domains must necessarily overlap in some sense for that to work.

--------------------------------------------------

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, a framework such as this is irrefutably indistinguishable from a purely monist framework in which the "mind" is merely an abstraction of the collective of thought processes we perform which are themselves abstractions of physical brain processes. And then of course, that bloody razor you borrow from that Occam guy comes up.

The other problem with this "brain-as-a-conduit-for-the-soul" idea is simply that it offers no mechanism for how it can even be done. Since there's a physical component to the equation, there has to be a physical component to the connection, and is therefore subject to empirical study.

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

Re: Can anyone make any sense of this argument?

My answer to the question is......

No and No.

Carry on......

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

I did make the following argument in a response to this guy, I'm not sure how sound it is though.

His argument rests upon the assertion that non-physical things must have non-physical causes.

My argument is thus: Surely this logic must work the other way around also; physical things must have physical causes.

This negates non-physical things being caused by the physical, and physical things being caused by the non-physical.

If that is the case then the physical universe cannot have been caused by a non-physical God.

I suspect that your adversary's intellectual capacity is poor enough that this may work.

However, just to play devil's advocate here, I think the actual case here is that the argument need not necessarily rest on non-physical causation of non-physical things, but rather that non-physical things must exist in some non-physical manner or non-physical domain. However, the fact that the domains are different doesn't preclude the possibility of substance from two separate domains interacting in some way, though a mechanism by which that is possible is yet to be established.

And the example I'm sure one would bring up in this case is the idea that the brain is the physical attachment point of the non-physical mind. Or at least that non-physical minds and souls can still occupy physical bodies. So the domains must necessarily overlap in some sense for that to work.

--------------------------------------------------

Of course, as I mentioned earlier, a framework such as this is irrefutably indistinguishable from a purely monist framework in which the "mind" is merely an abstraction of the collective of thought processes we perform which are themselves abstractions of physical brain processes. And then of course, that bloody razor you borrow from that Occam guy comes up.

The other problem with this "brain-as-a-conduit-for-the-soul" idea is simply that it offers no mechanism for how it can even be done. Since there's a physical component to the equation, there has to be a physical component to the connection, and is therefore subject to empirical study.

The problem with the argument about a "physical component" - ie, a threshold or boundary between the soul and the body - being subject to empirical study lies in how to distinguish between a observed phenomenon being the result of a purely naturalistic cause or a non-physical one?

Scientific instruments are designed to detect naturalistic phenomena - excluding "spiritual" phenomena. This is the problem that science faces.

Please note, that I'm not arguing in favour of a non-physical (spiritual) domain, merely how does one distinguish the cause for naturalistic phenomena - naturalistic or spiritual?

Just to play devil's advocate, the theist can argue that, what's called, "quantum foam" represents that boundary between the spiritual and the physical

Kindest regards,

James

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

Please note, that I'm not arguing in favour of a non-physical (spiritual) domain, merely how does one distinguish the cause for naturalistic phenomena - naturalistic or spiritual?

Just to play devil's advocate, the theist can argue that, what's called, "quantum foam" represents that boundary between the spiritual and the physical

Kindest regards,

James

Something smells of "God of the Gaps" here, I just can't quite place my finger on it, tho.

Also,

If the virtual particle requires some sort of time and space 'point', would these particles have existed before space and/or time was 'created' and/or existed?

 

[The Felonius Pope]

This negates non-physical things being caused by the physical, and physical things being caused by the non-physical.If that is the case then the physical universe cannot have been caused by a non-physical God.

Umm.... if the universe was created outside of the realm of causality, doesn't that leave for the possibility of a non-physical god?

 

[CommonEnlightenment]

This negates non-physical things being caused by the physical, and physical things being caused by the non-physical.If that is the case then the physical universe cannot have been caused by a non-physical God.

Umm.... if the universe was created outside of the realm of causality, doesn't that leave for the possibility of a non-physical god?

Are you speaking from a Diest's perspective?



Sounds very architectural, like some sort of thing that would be created in a 'monologue' from the Matrix or something.

 

[The Felonius Pope]

I'm not exactly sure of what you mean when you say adiesm. Would you elaborate on this? Anyway, what I meant to say with my post is: let's allow the proposition that, "non-physical things must have non-physical causes." Even assuming that the proposition is true you still have to explain what acted upon the first non-physical thing to cause it. It seems than whenever you bring a deity into the scene you have to bypass causality, as it were.