Modal Argument: The Mind is Not the Brain

[Bucky Ball]

Chas, prove that mental properties are emergent. As opposed to received or having preexisting harmony.

Received from where? And what is 'preexisting harmony'?

While you're at it, define exactly what "non-harmonious" states, where THEY come from, and why is it, that in every case, they are associated with demonstrable, identifiable chemical imbalances, and physical disease states.

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Unlike you, Apo, who provides both background and clarification for your posts, Chas calls mind an emergent property as if he need only pronounce it so for it to be the case. If Chas, or any other forum member, wants to call mind an emergent property, then it’s only fair that they should be clear as to what they mean.

Emergence comes in various stripes. You have emergent abilities like photosynthesis, emergent functions like bricks, emergent qualities like wetness, and emergent patterns like hurricanes. You could even argue that meaning emerges from complex arrangements of symbols.
Furthermore, even if mind is an emergent property, however vaguely defined, that status alone would not completely define the relationship between body and mind. Once mind appears does it have a downward causal role? Or is mind an epiphenomena? Perhaps the emergent property of the brain is its ability to receive, rather than generate, mental properties. Or perhaps, the mind operates simultaneously and parallel to the body, as proposed by Leibnitz. Not all forms of emergence lead to materialism.

Sorry to throw the bullshit flag on your "emergent properties" foul, Chas and company.

As for the idea that nothing mental happens without a brain, none of you have presented any way that signification, qualia, or intentionality can be properly attributed to any physical process nor any means for excluding it from simple physical systems, like thermostats. Oh right, emergent properties arising out of complex systems...that's the pixie dust to which you cling. Poor sods.

No. "Intentionality", "qualia" and "signification" are perfectly explained by Neurophysiology, and Neurobiology. You think they are produced in your ass ? The ability to do those things is 100 % associated with normal, healthy brain structures and functions, and is inhibited by brain damage.
Just because you can't explain some brain products, does not prove anything about the impossibility of their production WITHOUT a brain. Show us ONE instance of "intentionality" in the absence of a brain.



meow