RE: The Brain=Mind Fallacy
June 1, 2012 at 10:49 am
(This post was last modified: June 1, 2012 at 10:50 am by Neo-Scholastic.)
Two theories are being presented to justify the material basis for mind. In the first case, various configurations and states of matter are said to produce mental phenomena that did not previously exist. The second position claims that brain-states are mental phenomena. Both theories try to get something for nothing and reveals how hollow materialist claims are, as I will explain.
As pointed out chickens produce eggs.Chickens and eggs both fall into the same category of being. Both are physical objects. The car/speed analogy is more complex but follows the same logic. Speed is the description of a material state, a relationship of physical objects in time and space. The parts share the same physical properties as the car, including speed. Each part also moves through physical space in time. At smaller scales you have Brownian motion and at still smaller scales atomic vibrations. Motion can be described by even more fundamental physical properties, like mass. Yet in this case you also see that atomic particles have mass, the car parts have mass, and the whole car has mass. The parts share the properties of the whole. They can interact because complex material states are aggregates of similar simple material states. Likewise, you can describe complex mental properties, like a memory, in terms of simpler mental properties like sensation.
The difficulties arise when you start to attribute one category of being, mental phenomena, to another categories of being, like physical objects. If you attribute complex mental properties like emotions to a complex physical object like the brain, then you must attribute simpler mental properties to parts of the physical brain, like the visual cortex. Just as the whole brain and its parts have mass, the whole brain and its parts share an experiential component. Followed to its logical extreme, you conclude that conscious experience is a fundamental property of reality on par with mass.
The problem for materialism is this. Materialism only accepts four fundamental forces associated with material properties. There are no mental ‘forces’ or basic properties of mind from which to build complex mental properties like conscious self awareness. The materialist perspective has no place to insert mind.
It’s attempts to explain consciousness are on par with magic.
As pointed out chickens produce eggs.Chickens and eggs both fall into the same category of being. Both are physical objects. The car/speed analogy is more complex but follows the same logic. Speed is the description of a material state, a relationship of physical objects in time and space. The parts share the same physical properties as the car, including speed. Each part also moves through physical space in time. At smaller scales you have Brownian motion and at still smaller scales atomic vibrations. Motion can be described by even more fundamental physical properties, like mass. Yet in this case you also see that atomic particles have mass, the car parts have mass, and the whole car has mass. The parts share the properties of the whole. They can interact because complex material states are aggregates of similar simple material states. Likewise, you can describe complex mental properties, like a memory, in terms of simpler mental properties like sensation.
The difficulties arise when you start to attribute one category of being, mental phenomena, to another categories of being, like physical objects. If you attribute complex mental properties like emotions to a complex physical object like the brain, then you must attribute simpler mental properties to parts of the physical brain, like the visual cortex. Just as the whole brain and its parts have mass, the whole brain and its parts share an experiential component. Followed to its logical extreme, you conclude that conscious experience is a fundamental property of reality on par with mass.
The problem for materialism is this. Materialism only accepts four fundamental forces associated with material properties. There are no mental ‘forces’ or basic properties of mind from which to build complex mental properties like conscious self awareness. The materialist perspective has no place to insert mind.
It’s attempts to explain consciousness are on par with magic.
