Mind is the brain?

[bennyboy]

Yes you have, many times.  CTM...is a theory that mind is a comp system.  Could it be any simpler?

I never said your idea wasn't simple. I said it wasn't detailed, and that you hadn't provided any specifics. To be frank, right now it seems a little woo as you've explained it.

"Complex ways" is insufficient.  Many things are ludicrously complex, and yet they do not present themselves as candidates for mind.  A particular type of complexity is required for computational systems, for example....and a particular type of complexity is required for a 747.  You don't expect any equally complex sewing machine to begin boarding passengers and making trans-atlantic flights, I assume.   Similarly, I don't expect things to present themselves as candidates for mind due to their complexity alone, and conveniently, they don't.   Matter-mind is a fun word, but it excuses itself from offering any explanation of the phenomena, and is simply nowhere to be found in evidence.

I didn't say mind supervenes on complexity alone. I said that complex minds supervene on complex coordination of elemental "atomic" parts, rather than supervening whole-scale on systems that hit a magical (and arbitrary) level of coordination.

I don't personally state that anything causes mind, I think that brain is mind, remember...but whats the point of this comment anyway?  

Do you think that these manifestations, as you've put it, would present themselves in a mind that didn't exist?  Clearly it's existence is significant.  But hey..if all that you find significant is perception of form and color..you don't even need a theory of mind for that.  You could simply take a look at how a camera works.  I doubt that will satisfy, but you're not asking a very difficult question if it's perception, rather than mind, that sets you to wondering.

Let me ask you, what is the relationship of a table to a QM particle? At what point does a collection of QM particles become a "table." There isn't one-- it's arbitrary. And this is my view (at least if we're assuming a physical monism) of mind: that it is essential rather than supervenient. What we call mind-- thinking about Mom, choosing food in the supermarket, etc. is to that elemental principle of mind what a table is to that elemental nature of a QM particle.

Your view and mind aren't that different except for one thing: you see mind as a coordination of systems, without having any explanation of what principle unifies those systems into a single entity. I see mind as intrinsic to matter at the most elemental level, with no magicspecial arbitrary "cut line" at which we will say, "There was no mind, and now, there IS mind."

Try this for clarification: what is the simplest possible physical system which you would say is a comp mind?