RE: Mind is the brain?
March 16, 2016 at 12:48 am
(This post was last modified: March 16, 2016 at 12:53 am by bennyboy.)
(March 15, 2016 at 2:32 pm)little_monkey Wrote: (1) observable (smiling, breathing... etc) → mindful
(2) observable (smiling, breathing... etc) → brain activities
Therefore I have to conclude that,
(3) mindful = brain activities
(1) begs the question. It should read: "assumed to be mindful"
You haven't explained how you have ascertained that the physical structure sitting in your lab (i.e. the person) actually does experience qualia.
Now, in the case of people, this is a very easy assumption to make. But what happens when androids smile and breath? Now (1) is out the window and it turns out that all along you may not really have been studying the salient feature of mind: the existence of an agent capable of experiencing qualia. OR we may extend human rights to androids, eventually allow ourselves to be extinguished as a species, and never know whether those replacing us actually can experience or are just philosophical zombies. And all this because when we see a smile, we assume a mind.