(March 30, 2016 at 8:00 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(March 30, 2016 at 11:33 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I think the consensus that the mind is the brain is more of a pragmatic result than a theoretical one. We assign the identity because for the most part it works as an explanation of the phenomenon, including its evolution, whereas most other theories are non-starters. It doesn't mean we couldn't be wrong, but I think you hold the mind-brain paradigm to an unusually high standard of evidence. Things like the closure of induction and the philosophical understanding of the link between cause and effect pose similarly insurmountable hurdles, yet I don't think you place those problems in the same category. In short, I think you make an exception of the mind-brain problem in your standards.
The problem is that, unlike other science, the "results" are not generalizable, one of the principles of a good scientific theory. So even if you "know" what systems or subsystems or whatever are associated with different kinds of experience, there's no way to generalize that knowledge to non-animal physical systems. You can study a bowling ball and a feather, and confirm that they both fall at the same rate as gravity, and then generalize that to all objects. You can't necessarily do that with even a well-mapped human brain-- there is no real THEORY there sufficient to apply our "knowledge" to anything other than some dude sitting in a psych lab.
You'd be surprised that researchers are confirming that many species have a primitive concept of math. And that these animals can learn mathematical concepts. They are teachable.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwY1Ws5sd58 , around 21:36 for the animal part.
