Mind/matter duality

[bennyboy]

The fact that if someone puts an axe through your brain, and that your mind won't be functioning very well after proves in every way that there is a deep connection between the two. We're just beginning to explore scientifically that deep connection. The MRI was only invented 20 years ago, and was used primarily for medical purposes. Actual research has been scant. But the remarkable thing is that this used to be the domain of philosophy, the mind/matter thing. It isn't anymore.

Okay, this is the conversation to be had, I think. I agree that brain and mind seem to be strongly connected. However, brain function viewed from the outside is not the same as experience. One is the interchange of massive numbers of electrons, photons, NTs, etc., viewable under fMRI and other devices; the other is a subjective space full of feeling, color, and symbolism, and cannot be directly manipulated, or even proven to exist. You will argue (without being able to totally prove it. . . "yet") that every experience is just one's awareness of some part of brain function: that they are one and the same. But how, other than a plausible consensus with other people (who from your perspective are really just more experiences), would you go about providing proof of this?

You'd have to either prove or assume all of the following: 1) the things you perceive represent an objective reality; 2) the people you communicate with are not only real, but are really sentient beings like you; 3) you and the other people (now assumed real) consulting with each other on issues of mind do not have some common trait (for example, a genetic predisposition to be unaware of certain kinds of information) which makes it physically impossible for you to know the "truth"; 4) the fact that all ideas about an objective physical world are derived from subjective experiences-- perception of light, sound, etc.-- doesn't lead to a nasty circularity; for example, you aren't in the Matrix, where all available perceptions point falsely to the existence of the brain, rather than the Matrix, as the source of all your experiences.

The problem is that since these are the questions we're trying to investigate, we are not allowed to assume any of them, or else we are begging the question. So how are we to go about proving them?