The Brain=Mind Fallacy

[Brian37]

Are you mad that I used a definition you posted to point out that there is no part of the brain that is NOT material?

All I added was skip that archaic word, as a suggestion, and simply say the the sum of all the parts of the brain that we call "I" and you needlessly call "mind" is the product of the ENTIRE brain in motion.

"Me", "I" is an outcome of evolution, genetics, brain chemistry, and life input with the output of expression.

Maybe this will help you, I am trying to throw you a bone and explain WHY it is not a good idea to use that word.

When you look at all the other non medical definitions of "mind" just like the word "theory" you always have some layman dip shit twisting the word. There are, not you, not me, but people WHO DO think the "mind" is a magical entity that can be physically separated from the brain, "spirit".

I really wish scientists would do a better job, like they do when they give animals and medical conditions unique foreign words of making it so distinct it cannot be confused with the bullshit woo lay people often twist.

For the same reason I don't like the word "philosophy". Why do you need a word like that that laymen attach with so much baggage when all you have to do is say "From long term tested observations this pattern seems to be the most solid and this seems to be what we should go with". Takes longer to say, sure, but doesn't give the laymen a chance to fuck it up.

I know why the word "mind" is used, and if people looked at it like that definition, I would have less of a problem with it. But you give a theist an inch and they take it to woo.

I really think this is arguing semantics. If both you and I agree that there is nothing outside the brain and "I' cannot be separated from the brain, then what we are merely arguing is how words and what words should be used.

My point is to avoid giving ammo to dip shits who want to take nature and turn it into a magic show.

Attempting to win an argument by redefining words, besides being loathsome when the other side does it, just doesn't work. The appeal of ideas about gods or other woo matters rarely resides in a particular word. The end effect seems to make you look foolish while anyone nursing a woo idea just looks at you with deserved suspicion since you don't argue honestly. Defining away the opposition is at best a way of rationalizing for yourself how so many people can be wrong. Since it doesn't begin to touch why people are drawn to woo, why should they listen to you?

I think it is stupid to insist on tradition always. If evolution were static it wouldn't occur, and if language didn't evolve our species would still be grunting and cuneiform writting wouldn't have been invented and Latin wouldn't have evolved into the multiple languages it has today. And if we never invented new words we wouldn't change at all as a species.

If you want to argue that one topic and one word should not change, that is a better argument than using "never" as a blanket solution.

Again, more and more atheists are taking back the word "atheist" from it's long held and defined by theists as a stigma, and more and more atheists are accepting "agnostic" as being compatible with "atheist".

So to say it is never ok to redefine something is absurd, otherwise we would still be speaking old English which looks nothing like modern English.
Otherwise we would be stuck with Ancient Greek or Latin, if language didn't evolve.

"Gay" as a word started out as merely meaning "happy" and got re defined by bigots as a slur. If gays simply accepted the slur as a definition, they would be stuck with that slur.. But now more and more people see the word as a description of sexuality and not a negative moral judgement.

If evolution isn't stagnant why should language remain stagnant? Context does matter which is why absolutes in anything in life are not good solutions.