Mind is the brain?

[drfuzzy]

What little monkey said.  You can be hooked up to a number of machines now that can show the electrical activity of just about any process you can name, PET scans,  QEEG scans, CT scans - - they can see which parts are active when you speak, when you see a pictures of food vs. a pretty woman . . . we can watch the brain drive action and cognition and emotion.  It's a physical process.

This sort of reasoning has been addressed. Read the paper. It's by an atheist  philosopher.

It's by an atheist philosopher. So?   -- Not interested.
Sure, people are still trying to understand what cognition actually is and how it functions.  
But we know it's a function of the brain, and not some "soul" "noncorporeal" woo crap.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

What little monkey said.  You can be hooked up to a number of machines now that can show the electrical activity of just about any process you can name, PET scans,  QEEG scans, CT scans - - they can see which parts are active when you speak, when you see a pictures of food vs. a pretty woman . . . we can watch the brain drive action and cognition and emotion.  It's a physical process.

This sort of reasoning has been addressed. Read the paper. It's by an atheist  philosopher.

Why does this have any relevance?

Do you think that because the word atheist is there to describe someone we will all suddenly just go with it?

Do you agree with everyone who is a Muslim because the word muslimis used to describe them?

[Mystic]

This sort of reasoning has been addressed. Read the paper. It's by an atheist  philosopher.

Why does this have any relevance?

Do you think that because the word atheist is there to describe someone we will all suddenly just go with it?

Do you agree with everyone who is a Muslim because the word muslimis used to describe them?

What I mean is that it's not arguing for a soul. And it's not written with a motive to defend faith. So it might be worth looking at from an Atheistic viewpoint in that they won't be saying, it's another one of those Theistic apologetic. It seems he use to rely a lot on these arguments himself, till he realized they were problematic. He is still a materialist, but he doesn't believe there is any arguments to prove materialism.

[brewer]

MIND = ACTIVITIES OF THE BRAIN.

PERIOD.

Define mind please. Which part of the mind do you believe are the autonomic functions?

[Chas]

Why does this have any relevance?

Do you think that because the word atheist is there to describe someone we will all suddenly just go with it?

Do you agree with everyone who is a Muslim because the word muslimis used to describe them?

What I mean is that it's not arguing for a soul. And it's not written with a motive to defend faith. So it might be worth looking at from an Atheistic viewpoint in that they won't be saying, it's another one of those Theistic apologetic. It seems he use to rely a lot on these arguments himself, till he realized they were problematic. He is still a materialist, but he doesn't believe there is any arguments to prove materialism.

In that case, he is simply wrong.

All of the evidence is consistent with materialism; there is no evidence for dualism or anything like it.

Cognition and consciousness are emergent propertied of the brain.  That is what the evidence tells us.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The brain is the material substrate for the thought processes we call "mind". Damage to the brain can and does cause mental disorders, which supports my point above.

For this reason I reject the idea of a disembodied mind.

[little_monkey]

MIND = ACTIVITIES OF THE BRAIN.

PERIOD.

Define mind please.

I've defined it. There's no need to redefine what has been defined. 

Which part of the mind do you believe are the autonomic functions?

Whatever part of the brain does that, and science can investigate that, it does not alter the basic definition.

[brewer]

Define mind please.

I've defined it. There's no need to redefine what has been defined. 

Which part of the mind do you believe are the autonomic functions?

Whatever part of the brain does that, and science can investigate that, it does not alter the basic definition.

OK, you and I have different definitions.

[IATIA]

The mind is nothing more than a product of the brain processes. It is obvious to me that cats, dogs, parrots, apes, monkeys and cetaceans have some semblance of consciousness. They all (including various birds) have problem solving abilities which means they have abstract thought capabilities, ergo, a mind.

[Esquilax]

So let's consider what conclusion should be reached, using the OP's linked argument. We have brains, and all of the evidence available suggests an inextricable correlation between them. No evidence at all exists that suggests that the mind is separate from the brain, can exist without a brain, or is in any way supernatural, and in many cases the available evidence directly contradicts these claims.

Let us also accept that yes, correlation does not uniformly map to identity. While this is true, it also fails to take into account the state of the evidence at our disposal: given what we know about the brain and minds, would it be rational to throw all that away because it's possible (yet unevidenced) that it's only a correlation and not a case of the two being identical? Should we reverse the burden of proof and say that because we haven't proven that possibility wrong, it's anywhere near as valid as the other conclusion, that fits with all the evidence? Should we conclude that the two are separate, at all?

The answer, on all counts, is no. We must follow where the evidence leads, not ignore the evidence because it's not yet complete and perfect.