RE: Mind is the brain?
March 17, 2016 at 1:31 pm
(This post was last modified: March 17, 2016 at 1:34 pm by bennyboy.)
(March 17, 2016 at 1:25 pm)little_monkey Wrote: If you believe that MIND = BRAIN ACTIVITIES + something else, then it's upon you to show that you can perform a mindful activity without any activity in the brain. Otherwise, you are grasping at straws.This isn't about what I think or don't think. It's what I know or don't know, and why. You say that smiling is an activity of the mind; however, some robots can smile, and nobody thinks they have minds as far as I know. It's one thing to have correlates of mind, but how will you show your correlation, being unable to observe a mind?
Either you will have to beg the question by defining mind in terms of the correlates themselves, or you will have to make a philosophical assumption. The problem with this is that people are willing to make philosophical assumptions about God, as well. If people start saying that God's presence is stronger when I play flute music, can I then establish a correlation between God's presence and flute music? No-- first you will ask them to demonstrate the existence of God's presence, and you will not accept the presence of flute music as sufficiently (or at all) establishing that fact.
So if we are trying to show that mind indeed causes smiling, you'll need to demonstrate the existence of mind before you assert that correlation as one of meaning.