The primary question of our time: Is Mind Brain?

[fr0d0]

I don't doubt that storage and cognition are physical functions. What's produced (thoughts, ideas, personality) is more than simple retrieval of data. That's not to say that ethereal processes are invoked; just that it's a step removed from physical function. Forcing it to be physical function is lying about it.

[downbeatplumb]

I don't doubt that storage and cognition are physical functions. What's produced (thoughts, ideas, personality) is more than simple retrieval of data. That's not to say that ethereal processes are invoked; just that it's a step removed from physical function. Forcing it to be physical function is lying about it.

What do you mean by 'a step removed fro physical function'?

[orogenicman]

I don't doubt that storage and cognition are physical functions. What's produced (thoughts, ideas, personality) is more than simple retrieval of data. That's not to say that ethereal processes are invoked; just that it's a step removed from physical function. Forcing it to be physical function is lying about it.

Erm, what?

[Diamond-Deist]

This is a very close question to my Soul thread.

Mind is definitely brain to use your phrasing.

The mind is like a virtualized platform produced by your brain which channels the electrical signals your senses receive.

There is an obvious reason for this, it is an evolutionary trait built by the need an organism has to first collect data of what is going on around it and two to respond to such actions.

The mind was developed to make maximum use of this information so we can react as quickly as possible.

Hence forth mind is no more than a survival tool.

[fr0d0]

What do you mean by 'a step removed fro physical function'?

That the electronics isn't the thought (etc)

The physical mechanics of the brain... storage, cognition... aren't the same as thoughts, personality etc. .

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@DD: that describes instinct & not cognition. A snake can only act upon instinct, it has no (nor does it need) cognitive function.

[Diamond-Deist]

What do you mean by 'a step removed fro physical function'?

That the electronics isn't the thought (etc)

The physical mechanics of the brain... storage, cognition... aren't the same as thoughts, personality etc. .

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@DD: that describes instinct & not cognition. A snake can only act upon instinct, it has no (nor does it need) cognitive function.

Disagree.

Do you actually know the process of how we developed our unique sense of thought which separates us from other animals? If you did you would realise it's just another process of our evolution not anything supernatural as in the soul.

[Fred]

That's the big one for me, and I believe that the way it falls is going to determine more about how things shake out than any other.

If the materialists are correct, all notions of Divinity are down the tubes.

If the Consciousness folks are correct, materialism goes down the tubes.

I side with the latter camp, and my main kick against the materialists is that their a priori stance has severely impeded the study of consciousness as consciousness by maintaining it is simply an epi-phenomenon and tend to reject all evidence to the contrary out of hand, yet have absolutely no answer whatsoever as to why consciousness even exists.

Do you feel that mind is wholly reducible to brain?

Name the evidence and show how they unavoidably lead to something about the consciousness that is genuinely apart from the matter of the body and environs?

No need if you put it that way. The environs? Whatever you had in mind with that will do just fine for now, since last I checked the environs did not constitute the brain, and if not, well it's a done deal right there.

[popeyespappy]

Evidence that brain is mind.

It's been a puzzle why our two closest living primate relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, have widely different social traits, despite belonging to the same genus. Now, a comparative analysis of their brains shows neuroanatomical differences that may be responsible for these behaviors, from the aggression more typical of chimpanzees to the social tolerance of bonobos.
"What's remarkable is that the data appears to match what we know about the human brain and behavior," says Emory anthropologist James Rilling, who led the analysis. "The neural circuitry that mediates anxiety, empathy and the inhibition of aggression in humans is better developed in bonobos than in chimpanzees."

http://www.wildbiology.com/research/Chim..._brain.asp

I haven’t been able to track down a free copy of the original paper Differences between chimpanzees and bonobos in neural systems supporting social cognition. I’d really like to read it though if someone else has access to it.

Some other on topic interesting papers:

http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle...sequence=1

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2588649/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826104/

http://www.life.umd.edu/faculty/wilkinso...ch2008.pdf

[Fred]

Evidence that brain is mind.

"The neural circuitry that mediates anxiety, empathy and the inhibition of aggression."

The operative word being mediate, and I'm in full accord with that. The brain circuitry facilitates the show. It doesn't create the show.

And sometimes the show much go on anyway, even if the brain is mostly not there: http://bit.ly/dVIUn

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[quote='Rhythm' pid='173610' dateline='1315155999']
The answer of our time is yes.

Link?

[Diamond-Deist]

"The neural circuitry that mediates anxiety, empathy and the inhibition of aggression."

The operative word being mediate, and I'm in full accord with that. The brain circuitry facilitates the show. It doesn't create the show.

And sometimes the show much go on anyway, even if the brain is mostly not there: http://bit.ly/dVIUn

I think I want to answer here but I don't know what the fk you just said??