Mind is the brain?

[Hoppingbunny]

thats what ive always thought

[bennyboy]

Right, it's a system.  The larger picture was just a nod to chemistry and physics.  Is it chemistry or physics that's an illusion?

The illusion is in the conflation of functional coherence of parts with the sense of unity in one system, and not in another. There are things which are explicitly connected (like you and I via the internet) which you do not see as part of a unified system, though it matches your theory just fine. However, neurons are as discrete from each other as people on the internet are, and maybe more so: each is a little black box.

Indeed we are, and there's a bigger gap between you and I than there is between connected nuerons, eh?  The internet isn't a comp system, it's a network full of them.  You could say "but it does x or y or z"..except you'd be wrong, some comp system that is connected does x y or z...you don't see that, though.  Why would it matter in any case?  If we chose to include all networks made of comp systems as a comp system...then what?  Neither you nor I contest the fact that computation is involved in the internet, and neither of us has been given reason to think that the internet is or has mind regardless of whether we call it a comp system.

I'd very much say that the brain is also a network full of small comp systems, if you choose to look at it that way. My problem isn't with your idea of computation. It's with the arbitrary division you have between computation at the very tiny level, at the "normal" level in which we experience things, and at the macro level. For example, I see the change in energy of an electron orbit as memory, and radioactive half life as a kind of computation-- but you draw a line in the sand and insist this is an abuse of the term. I see in Google a massive computer, much more complex than the one on my desk or even of my own brain, but you see it as a collection of discrete units.

We -are- connected in a way that's functionally similar (even without need of reference to the internet, just talking is functionally similar...as is using a brush to paint a picture).  That's not all that surprising, we (both comps and ourselves) exist in the same world, same laws, same interactions.  If we're trying to achieve a similar goal or function, and if we allow for plenty of wiggle room with phrases like not functionally different............then we'll find plenty of comparisons.  This would be support for the comp mind position, wouldn't it?

I've never argued against the idea of computation, or at least in this thread of the seat of the mind in the brain. It's always been my position that it doesn't make sense to say mind is brain until we can say at what LEVEL of organization (call it computation if you want) the essence of mind supervenes. I suspect that mind is elemental, and that elemental mind is in all physical interactions, specifically those which exchange information, like photon transmission and reception, or like the change in electrical orbits. I also see those fundamental interactions as a kind of computation. So it's not that you're wrong in principle-- it's that you are drawing arbitrary divisions which skew your perspective too much into having a certain view. Or, more properly, it's that you already have that certain view, and are unnecessarily defining your terms to fit it, rather than fully appreciating the ramifications of what you're saying.