Mind is the brain?

[bennyboy]

Full disclosure: in terms of a material world view, I'd go with a kind of panpsychism, but I prefer a kind of idealism.  I don't want to talk about that right now, but just so you can see where Rhythm and little_monkey are coming from with some of the comments they direct at me.

No scientific evidence exists for panpsychism; it is an unproductive hypothesis.

No scientific evidence exists for mind at all.  It is a brute fact of the self, but is no more observable in the Universe than God.  But you've responded to the wrong part of my post-- that was just so you can understand the historical context in which the rest of us are posting a little better.  In other words, it's a kind of personal introduction and a welcome to this thread.

My post was asking on what scale, either in size or complexity, mind supervenes.  And specifically, whether this is something that happens extremely rarely, only in very special systems, or something that happens extremely often, in any system capable of storing state data or receiving and transmitting information, or something in between.

[The Grand Nudger]

This game's fun but I'm a little busy to keep playing.  I could keep listing things that involve change of states that persist over time and have effects, aka processing, and you can keep saying that your comp mind is a special snowflake.  So why don't you say what's special about it in terms that cannot be applied to anything that doesn't for sure have mind, and be done with it?

You could list things off things that change states, sure.  Not all of them will be processors...... and fewer still will be computers. 

Still waiting for that non-arbitrary distinction.

Between a rock and a computer? If you can't tell I can't help you with that.

What about the brain?  That's always been the question.

Magic? Clapping really hard? Fairy dust?

Do you have any objections left, or are we done until next time?

[bennyboy]

Still waiting for that non-arbitrary distinction.

Between a rock and a computer......? 

Between all the information being exchanged in the Universe, and the particular information exchanges that you think are special.

[The Grand Nudger]

In context, some are part of computational systems....and others are just stuff happening for you to equivocate upon, because you think computation is somehow degrading.

[bennyboy]

This game's fun but I'm a little busy to keep playing.  I could keep listing things that involve change of states that persist over time and have effects, aka processing, and you can keep saying that your comp mind is a special snowflake.  So why don't you say what's special about it in terms that cannot be applied to anything that doesn't for sure have mind, and be done with it?

You could list things off things that change states, sure.  Not all of them will be processors...... and fewer still will be computers. 

Dude, it's your pet theory. Explain what systems do or don't match it.

[The Grand Nudger]

I have before, and here we are.  Why would I waste the time? It's not my responsibility to ensure that your objections are factual or valid in any case. It's yours.

[IATIA]

The central paradigm of contemporary psychology and neuroscience is that the mind = the brain.
This is taken for granted, but why believe it?

I see, hear, feel, smell and touch.  I think, therefore I am.  However, I am a 'brain-in-a-vat'.  Everything I perceive is via my senses which is processed by the brain then I am aware of it.  Without the brain (or this processing), there would be nothing to 'feed' my mind.

(Because of the 'brain-in-a-vat' issue, I cannot even know for sure that you even exist anymore than a figment of my imagination, which means that even my own body could be a figment of my imagination.  Think 'dream'.  For sake of argument, we will accept that you and I are 'real'.)

Let us start with the great apes.  I would have to assume that they, as much as you and I, have a mind, although we have no way to test that scenario either.  Now, if we assume dreaming requires a mind, then we have to assume cats and dogs have minds also.  As this progresses down the animal tree, where would it stop?  What of 'pre-brains'?  Flatworms are know for their ability to learn and when dissected and fed to other flatworms, those other worms are able to respond as though they were taught the same maze/trick/whatever.  So would they, the flatworms, have a mind, albeit not as 'vivid' as ours?  What is a brain but memory and control?  An amoeba can move and only has one cell.  Is it a brain cell?  Is it a muscle cell?  Is it both?  Does it have a mind?  Does it have an awareness?  It can find food and reproduce.

Why believe it?  What is the alternative?  Magic?

[bennyboy]

I have before, and here we are.  Why would I waste the time?  It's not my responsibility to ensure that your objections are factual or valid in any case.  It's yours.

Then nobody here is making a positive  assertion, and the discussion is finished, I guess.  Probably for the best, all this typing is eating into my LoL time.

[little_monkey]

I've already addressed that issue: it's not just smiling you need to consider but ALL activities. For instance just to name one activity:  when android can create new ideas, like humans have done from Plato to Heisenberg, then you can say maybe these androids have a "mind". Until then android proves nothing about what the mind is. (hint: bringing androids to defeat my argument isn't going to work). 

Are you sure that computers haven't generated new ideas?  (1) I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that and (2) it still doesn't show that computers can experience what things are like.

A programmer can input a software by which the android could generate any idea, so under the possibility of every combinations of known ideas, the android could  generate "new" ideas, but that's the reason why I said " like humans have done from Plato to Heisenberg" - new ideas that have advanced our knowledge of the world, not just any new idea. When Androids have that capacity, which entails a form of self-consciousness, then I will be the first to ask such androids to be treated like every humans with the same rights. But then it would prove Mind = "brain activities under different physical configuration", and then there would be hope that life could develop on a different planet and produce intelligent life with different physical configuration.

What begging? This is how science is done, has been done since Galileo. We correlate things: in math, it's called mapping. All math is mapping. If we can correlate in a one-to-one mapping between mind activities with brain activities, you have no choice but to say that mind = brain activity. You can't change the rules just because YOU don't like it.

You can't make a correlation, because you haven't demonstrated that any physical system HAS a mind without reference to those correlates.  You're correlating brain function (or smiles or idea-making or whatever physical correlates you assume must serve as evidence of mind) with mystery magic, not with anything which is known to exist.  You are saying "Mind is brain function, smiles, and idea-making, and look, there it is.  Told ya!"  That is pretty much the definition of begging the question.

 That's mumbo-jumbo, and you know it. There is no law in nature that says I can't correlate. The question is what does the correlation show? And that leads to the next point below that I've made before...

And you haven't answered my point: If you believe that MIND = BRAIN ACTIVITIES + something else, then it's upon you to show that you can perform a mindful activity without any activity in the brain.

I'm not asserting anything.  It is my intent to show that material monists do not, and cannot, have a sufficient philosophical basis for their claims about mind.  That being said, I'm also the only one here who has suggested an experiment by which we might try to get around the problem of our inability to directly observe mind.

 You can't answer that point because it defeats your argument. Scientific experiments points in one direction, MIND = BRAIN ACTIVITIES, but you refuse to accept that reality.

[bennyboy]

 That's mumbo-jumbo, and you know it. There is no law in nature that says I can't correlate. The question is what does the correlation show? And that leads to the next point below that I've made before...

You can correlate two observable properties. Mind is not observable.

Therefore, you must operationalize the word "mind" to be something which IS observable-- smiles and brain functions. But those things aren't mind. To assume so is to defeat the purpose of experimenting-- why pretend you're searching for or studying mind when you've already adopted an assumption that begs the question?

 You can't answer that point because it defeats your argument. Scientific experiments points in one direction, MIND = BRAIN ACTIVITIES, but you refuse to accept that reality.

All caps don't add truth. Nor has science proven itself up to the task of answering philosophical questions about things which aren't objectively observable. In short, you haven't established that you are even experimenting on what you say you're experimenting on.

What if someone decided that since God can't be directly observed, he would take what everyone "knows" is God-- feelings of inspiration-- as a correlate. Then every time someone said they felt inspired, he'd claim he was studying the Lord. Dumb right? Because God can't be shown even to exist, isn't it?