RE: The Brain=Mind Fallacy
June 8, 2012 at 1:12 pm
(This post was last modified: June 8, 2012 at 1:15 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
(June 3, 2012 at 1:38 pm)genkaus Wrote: …humans predominantly rely on sight and sound, which results in our concepts relating to other senses to be severely limited. … Another person is still able to describe it physically and you are still able to create a mental construct to visualize it - in effect experience that object it being present….artists can play entire symphonies in their heads without an actual note being struck. This shows us that it is possible to have conceptual development of other sensory experiences as wellCreating a mental construct is a function; visualizing that construct is an experience. In addition, imagining something only takes you so far. As an artist, I can and do imagine mixing colors and distinguish between various pigment qualities in my head, but, as you say, only conceptually. I can make pictures in my head, yet none of these can substitute for a picture in front of me. Actual reality is more visceral and qualitatively different from imagining it, just as dreams pale in comparision to waking reality.
(June 3, 2012 at 4:57 pm)apophenia Wrote: Let's suppose that I've never ridden a bicycle, but I've spent my entire life studying human physiology, sport, and bicycle riding. Do I know how to ride a bicycle? Again, until we actually perform the experiment, it's impossible to know, but our intuition tells us no. It seems intuitively obvious that "knowing about" bicycle riding doesn't give us "knowing how" to ride a bicycle…It simply shows that there are different modes of knowing employed by minds and brains…Having conceptual knowledge probably will not allow us to intuit experiential knowledge; this doesn't tell us that experiential knowledge is special or magical, only that it is different.[/i]Magical, no, special, yes. It’s special precisely because it is different. You are correct that “knowing about” doesn’t give you “knowing how”. And niether of those give you “knowing what it feels like.” As you say, there are different modes of knowing. One is qualia.
(June 3, 2012 at 4:57 pm)apophenia Wrote: …when you separate the mind from the brain, you not only separate it from materialism, you separate it from all occurrences of itself, because if it isn't physical, we have no way of determining that your non-material mental is of the same stuff as my non-material mental…That is not my position. I do not posit the existence of a separate and distinct substance for mind apart from matter. I say that both mind and matter partake of a more fundamental basis, two sides of the same coin, if you will. Mind is the impression on one side. Matter the impression on the other. A precious metal supports both.
(June 3, 2012 at 4:57 pm)apophenia Wrote: ….if you assert some version of panpsychism or monism here, note that in doing so, you are accepting the burden of proof here…All materialist approaches are basically monist theories, because they reduce everything to fundamental particles and their properties. Using this approach, how do you distinguish between fundamental material properties and emergent ones? The same process that allows you to recognize ‘sphere’ as an emergent property of various substances also allows you to recognize atoms as emergent properties. So for example, you can make a sphere out of wood, cotton, or inflated rubber. ‘Spherical’ is a recognizable property actualized in different substances. Cotton balls, volley balls, and billard balls are all spheres. A helium atom, an iron atom, and a uraniuam atom are all atoms.
Using the materialist approach gives you emergent properties all the way down. The term ‘atom’ refers to the a set of properties that ‘emerge’ from electrons, protons, and neutrons, all of which refer to emergent properties of various types of quarks, then energy and fields, vibrating strings and so on the deeper you go. Thus is seems to be logical to conclude that “there is no there there” and call emergence itself the true fundamental, a continuous coming into being.