Mind is the brain?

[Mystic]

This was posted on another forum:

The central paradigm of contemporary psychology and neuroscience is that the mind = the brain.
This is taken for granted, but why believe it?  The main reason that is given is that changes in the brain seem to correlate with changes in the mind,e.g. put someone in an fMRI scanner and ask them to think about certain things, and parts of the brain 'light up' on the fMRI image.  Damage to the brain can cause damage to the mind, e.g. multiple strokes can lead to vascular dementia involving memory loss and personality changes.  All this shows an intimate correlation between the brain and the mind, so the mind must be nothing over and above the brain.
The fallacy of this argument is that correlation entails identity:  If two things occur together then they must be identical.  This is wrong.  If two things occur together, then they are linked, but not necessarily identical.  For example, take a radio.  Electrical activity in the circuit board correlates with the sound produced, and if you make changes to the circuit board you also change the sound, but we dont say that the sound is = the electrical activity or the circuit board.  Nor is the sound completely explained by the electrical activity, as this would exclude the radio presenter from the explanation when he is the actual cause of the sound.
Of course this doesnt prove that the mind is other than the brain, only that the main reason for thinking they are identical is flawed.  Here are some other bad reasons for thinking they are identical:


http://www.unc.edu/~ujanel/GIVING%20DUALISM.pdf

The paper is written by an atheist philosopher.

[Chad32]

The mind is the process of a brain. There's nothing to lead us to believe it's anything else. Some people might say the mind comes from a soul, but since we have no evidence for the soul's existence, we go with what is reasonable at this time. When we find something else for it to be, then we'll change our answer.

[Mystic]

The mind is the process of a brain. There's nothing to lead us to believe it's anything else. Some people might say the mind comes from a soul, but since we have no evidence for the soul's existence, we go with what is reasonable at this time. When we find something else for it to be, then we'll change our answer.

The author believes the mind is the brain, but he is saying there is no argument for materialism or that the mind is the brain. He addresses various arguments for mind is the brain sort of thing....and says really there is no argument to dismiss dualism although he doesn't believe in dualism.

A lot of these arguments address are quite common here in these forums. So have a look.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Minds are not brains. Minds are a natural process exhibited by brains. Anybody arguing that they're the same thing is either wrong or poorly wording what they think.

[Mystic]

Guys it's an expression for materialism. The paper is about refuting all the arguments for materialism.

[brewer]

The brain has many processes, products and functions. Cognition is one of the processes . Do you consciously think about your heart beating, breathing, peristalsis, releasing hormones, .............  nope.

With that being said, would you consider the brain being greater than the mind?

[little_monkey]

MIND = ACTIVITIES OF THE BRAIN.

PERIOD.

[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.

[Mystic]

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.

[LastPoet]

You speak as if being an atheist philosopher is a great achievement. I am an atheist warehouse keeper. Any argument from me is invalid.

You call this a result of anything?