RE: Mind is the brain?
March 17, 2016 at 9:36 pm
(This post was last modified: March 17, 2016 at 9:38 pm by bennyboy.)
(March 17, 2016 at 9:27 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(March 17, 2016 at 9:17 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I don't see the connection between what you quoted and what you said. Could you elaborate?
If a immaterial soul/spirit existed and was the foundation of human consciousness, then that soul/spirit would have to "push" electrons, that is, impart energy to them, because that is what brain activity is, electrochemical. However, if electrical charge is a conserved quantity, along with momentum and angular momentum, how would a soul or spirit cause an electron to go from a ground state to a higher state without violating the conservation laws?
I don't know anything about immaterial soul or spirits, so I can't comment on that much. My issue, at least the one I want to discuss in this thread, is one about locality vs. universality: specifically, at what level of organization does "mind" happen? I don't think it's likely that there's a "critical mass" of organization at any level, like the brain or a computer, but that it must be something very elemental in the Universe; specifically, that if it is material, it is intrinsic to matter at the quantum level, rather than supervening on those particular structures that we arbitrarily say are "processing."
Full disclosure: in terms of a material world view, I'd go with a kind of panpsychism, but I prefer a kind of idealism. I don't want to talk about that right now, but just so you can see where Rhythm and little_monkey are coming from with some of the comments they direct at me.