What God is to the Universe is what your mind is to your body

[bennyboy]

I suspect that for as long as you breath, you will contend that there hasn't been.  

Why not debate with me and put an end to your suspicion?

Debate?

Oh. . . me me me!  I'll debate you!

[fdesilva]

Why not debate with me and put an end to your suspicion?

Debate?

Oh. . . me me me!  I'll debate you!

Hay bennyboy are you willing to debate with me on the fact the perception involves simultaneous event and as such is a contradiction to what is possible from special relativity?
That would be awesome

[bennyboy]

Debate?

Oh. . . me me me!  I'll debate you!

Hay bennyboy are you willing to debate with me on the fact the perception involves simultaneous event and as such is a contradiction to what is possible from special relativity?
That would be awesome

Hmmmm.  I'll have to understand it before I can debate it.  I assume you've talked about it at length, so I'll go back and see what connection you've drawn between perception and relativity. But the short answer is yes-- if I can understand what you are asserting as a "fact," I will be happy to debate on it.

The OP is about God and the universe.  Is your argument in support of the OP proposition?

[Thumpalumpacus]

The fact that brain damage results in mental changes is not evidence of the interlinkage of the two? Am I reading you right?

It sounds like you are asking a question about psychology, and not about psychogony.  We know that if you change brain function, the qualitative nature of experience changes.  What we do not know is at what level the most elemental componenets of mind emerge-- if they emerge at all.

Well, we do know where some elements of mind emerge, tentatively; we know that self-consciousness is associated, in roughly proportional balance, with the forebrain, the cerebral cortex (animals with larger forebrains seem to exhibit more self-awareness; prefrontal lobotomies tend to inhibit higher thinking). Severing the corpus callosum results in subjects experiencing reality in vastly different ways. We know that damage to the occipital lobe can and does affect vision, and so on. Brain-mapping is still a nascent science, but the fact is that we have made large strides towards tying subjective experience with physiological functionality. Simply because we haven't explored every inch of the terrain, so to speak, does not mean that our feet cannot touch the ground.

The question is not about psychology so much as it is about the linkage between psychology and physiology in mental experience. How do our metaphorical feet touch the ground?

Put another way, what would you consider evidence? How would you falsify my point? And how might you falsify your own?

[bennyboy]

I should clarify. When I said "elements," I didn't mean things like form, color, and so on. I meant the most primitive possible spark of mind, as opposed to totally not-mind. It seems to me that mind must be binary-- either something does or doesn't have at least a tiny capacity to experience the universe. So my question isn't so much about how I see a tree as a tree, but about how a very simple system might respond to say an individual photon.

As for evidence. . . I'm strongly agnostic on this position. I don't think it is possible to know if ANY physical system, even another human being, really experiences the universe. In the case of people, I strongly believe they do, in the case of incoherent object (i.e. where the parts don't allow for an integrated flow of information), I strongly believe they do not. But in the case of say an atom or a galaxy, I haven't the foggiest idea whether they can experience anything, or how to go about determining whether they do.

[fdesilva]

Hay bennyboy are you willing to debate with me on the fact the perception involves simultaneous event and as such is a contradiction to what is possible from special relativity?
That would be awesome

Hmmmm.  I'll have to understand it before I can debate it.  I assume you've talked about it at length, so I'll go back and see what connection you've drawn between perception and relativity.  But the short answer is yes-- if I can understand what you are asserting as a "fact," I will be happy to debate on it.

The OP is about God and the universe.  Is your argument in support of the OP proposition?

Yes
This thread is the short version of this thread.
http://atheistforums.org/thread-44629.html
The full story is on this link
http://tianweb.com/Event%20to%20Dualism.pdf
even more detail
http://philpapers.org/rec/DESCAS

[Arkilogue]

I should clarify.  When I said "elements," I didn't mean things like form, color, and so on.  I meant the most primitive possible spark of mind, as opposed to totally not-mind.  It seems to me that mind must be binary-- either something does or doesn't have at least a tiny capacity to experience the universe.  So my question isn't so much about how I see a tree as a tree, but about how a very simple system might respond to say an individual photon.

As for evidence. . . I'm strongly agnostic on this position.  I don't think it is possible to know if ANY physical system, even another human being, really experiences the universe.  In the case of people, I strongly believe they do, in the case of incoherent object (i.e. where the parts don't allow for an integrated flow of information), I strongly believe they do not.  But in the case of say an atom or a galaxy, I haven't the foggiest idea whether they can experience anything, or how to go about determining whether they do.

Here is your binary mind:



It is both still and in motion. The central column is localized fluency, the outer-wrap is surrounding feeling. Electricity and magnetism.

[InsaneDane]

The thing is that our "mind" (I assume you mean brain) is a physical object that we can measure and has some sort of physical value.
We have proven this and a large part about what makes us think the way we do and how we react.

From what we've observed by studying the universe there's no reason to think that it needs some sort of "Master controller" to function.
Just like our brain, there's a certain system to things. Stuff usually don't just happen for an inexplicable and none-sensical reason and when they do they're called anomalies.

A temporary label for irregularity which usually ends up having a pretty good reason.

With our brain we call that system psychology and that's why the human mind can be systematically bend in a certain direction through torture, mental-stress and sometimes something as simple as certain words in a specific order.

It's psychology.

A better example would be to say that what the the laws of physics are to the universe as psychology is to the brain - It can be controlled and bent.

Now the boundary for the human brain is usually death and this is not to be taken as litteral as I may have put it.

Obviously the stability of the human brain is more relative than the existence of the laws of physics.
But with a lot more research in quantum-physics I would not be suprised to some day read that the laws of physics may not be set completely in stone or that someone has found a way to bend them in our favor.

And once again - Obviously this could potentially have the same catastrophic result as a brain being pushed too far.

But the entire argument of the universe/some deity being equivalent to whatever; is a pretty retarded argument overall, as anything that is the creator of or IS everything that has ever been and will ever be, wouldn't be comparable to anything but that thing alone.

[Arkilogue]

High magnetic fields affect mental function.

http://physics.stackexchange.com/questio...human-body

Medical MRI uses uniform fields of about 0.5 to 3.0 T. In a head MRI, the Lorentz force on ions in the brain can cause neurological effects such as vertigo. I've heard that this shows up in particular when the patient moves his head.


answered Apr 20 '13 at 16:02

Ben Crowell

[Thumpalumpacus]

I should clarify.  When I said "elements," I didn't mean things like form, color, and so on.  I meant the most primitive possible spark of mind, as opposed to totally not-mind.  It seems to me that mind must be binary-- either something does or doesn't have at least a tiny capacity to experience the universe.  So my question isn't so much about how I see a tree as a tree, but about how a very simple system might respond to say an individual photon.

As for evidence. . . I'm strongly agnostic on this position.  I don't think it is possible to know if ANY physical system, even another human being, really experiences the universe.  In the case of people, I strongly believe they do, in the case of incoherent object (i.e. where the parts don't allow for an integrated flow of information), I strongly believe they do not.  But in the case of say an atom or a galaxy, I haven't the foggiest idea whether they can experience anything, or how to go about determining whether they do.

I'm skeptical of mind being so binary. Given the complexity of the brain I think mind arises on many levels, from the sensory to the mulling.

If you've not read any Nicholas Humphries, you may be interested in doing so. His book The Evolution of the Mind is a really good read on the synergy between perception and analysis.

In line with that, I'm of the opinion that consciousness arises as a result of the many parts of the brain observing each other in action. It's not a single phenomenon, in my view, but rather, a ballet.

I have no doubt that other humans not only experience a Universe, but experience it in ways which I may or may not understand, but which I certainly cannot comprehend. I don't know what it's like to be you, nor you me; and we may not perceive, say, the color red the same way at all. But if you and I are in a car driving on the wrong side of the road at 3AM when a delivery-truck hits us, I'm willing to bet that both our bodies get crunchy pretty quick. Perceptions rule our mental lives, but that doesn't mean there is not an objective reality which is all too happy to pull us up by the short hairs.