Well I thrashed this out with Evie last night for a few hours on IM and I conclude that thought is indeed not a physical 'thing'. Evie seemed to me, without any good reason he could come up with, to hold onto his position despite the overwhelming logic to the contrary.
Evie asked me to prove that thought isn't a physical thing.
1. Thought passes all tests for something that doesn't physically exist: you can't hear it, see it, touch it, smell it.
Thought uses physical medium as transport but thought isn't the transport. Thought uses air, electricity, paint, ink etc. Thought is the rider on that transport. It's never the transport. It is always separate. Thought is created by a physical process in the brain, which is physical. Thought is communicated through physical medium but remains non physical. Thought can be enacted upon to produce physical effect but then ceases to be thought.
2. Thought fails all tests for something that exists.
Evie asserts that there is such a thing as a physical thought. I call bogus as there's no such allowance in the term 'physical'. Again thought may be born out of physical process involving electrical impulses in the brain but thought is more than those impulses. The impulses are dumb facilitators of thought.
3. I assert that thought doesn't exist physically. It isn't possible then to physically prove a negative.
Evie holds that theoretically, thought is a physical substance yet unknown. On that presumption Evie feels justified in classifying thought as a physical entity because everything else in this physical universe is physical so thought must be too. My far from perfect analogy was that because a playground consisted of 99 girls and 1 boy, by his logic Evie would conclude that the playground contains 100 girls. He dismisses the boy because the boy has no other comparable examples so then can't be evidence of something which exists.
Evie asked me to prove that thought isn't a physical thing.
1. Thought passes all tests for something that doesn't physically exist: you can't hear it, see it, touch it, smell it.
Thought uses physical medium as transport but thought isn't the transport. Thought uses air, electricity, paint, ink etc. Thought is the rider on that transport. It's never the transport. It is always separate. Thought is created by a physical process in the brain, which is physical. Thought is communicated through physical medium but remains non physical. Thought can be enacted upon to produce physical effect but then ceases to be thought.
2. Thought fails all tests for something that exists.
Evie asserts that there is such a thing as a physical thought. I call bogus as there's no such allowance in the term 'physical'. Again thought may be born out of physical process involving electrical impulses in the brain but thought is more than those impulses. The impulses are dumb facilitators of thought.
3. I assert that thought doesn't exist physically. It isn't possible then to physically prove a negative.
Evie holds that theoretically, thought is a physical substance yet unknown. On that presumption Evie feels justified in classifying thought as a physical entity because everything else in this physical universe is physical so thought must be too. My far from perfect analogy was that because a playground consisted of 99 girls and 1 boy, by his logic Evie would conclude that the playground contains 100 girls. He dismisses the boy because the boy has no other comparable examples so then can't be evidence of something which exists.
