The primary question of our time: Is Mind Brain?

[Fred]

Group mind? Like Hive Mind? Its a Heuristic expression that can be observed from the outside as acting in the best interests of the colony as a whole. It is however, completely dependent upon each individual and a limited number of communicable ideas (especially in ants)

Please explain how group mind in a flock of birds or school of fish is wholly dependent on each individual in the group when those individuals are behaving in concert simultaneously?

Fred, have you ever considered that I do find awe in this stuff? Things don't have to be magical, or spiritual, or "otherworldly" for me to experience awe.

Glad to hear you won't be joining the "it's merely" chorus, then. Cool. I'm trying to think of the last thing I found awe in while dismissing it so cavalierly. Still haven't come up with anything. You?

Consciousness wasn't always something we had any answer for at all.

Still don't, at least to the hard problem of consciousness.

That the brain is required for the mind to exist is at this point beyond a doubt.

I'd go with the brain being required for the mind to be experienced, but those two links I provided re the hydrocephalus and the slime mold with no brain but the ability to memorize and anticipate even call that into question.

You guys throw around this "without a doubt" bullshit way too freely. It's a big reason why you get the faith-based tag thrown at ya so often. Bitch about it all ya want, but if you want it to go away, maybe you should stop inviting it with such vigor.

There is an explanation as to "why" it exists. Interaction of chemicals and nerves.

That doesn't at all explain the hard problem of consciousness, and it's really depressing to think that you would believe it does. Materialists have no clue as to why said interactions produce interior experience. Not. One. Fucking. Clue. And because of that lack, they reject interior experience as being really real, which is really funny when you stop and think that it is within that interior experience that they are operating, and in fact, the only experience they have ever known. But the only really real stuff is the stuff they can never experience unmediated by the unreal world they live in but deny as existing. Breathtaking leap of illogic there, wouldn't ya say?

"How" is a better question (and the one that we filthy materialists are pursuing).

It's not a better question, it's the only question ya filthy bastards have any traction on, and more power to ya. Really. I heartily encourage the furthest and finest research into finding as much a possible as fast as possible. However, what that research is doing is investigating and discovering the brain correlates of mind. That's invaluable information, but it doesn't begin to touch the hard problem of consciousness.

You just keep making statements about materialism without providing any substance for your argument. It's frustrating.

Hmm. Let's see. Just for starters, I've made the statement that materialism is an a priori conclusion to counter your choir book assertion that conclusions must follow observation. I even added an infamous admission of such by a celebrated and stalwart materialist saying exactly that. You deflected that by attacking Richard Lewontin as someone who didn't understand the basics of science, which made it seem that you didn't know who he is. Regardless, you neither addressed the point nor denied it, and went straight to pontificating about faith folk. Regardless of the veracity of any of that, it's still a dodge from the initial point.

But, hey, ya want more re the weakness of the materialistic stance, fine. Here's a slog through the problems with materialistic arguments. http://bit.ly/oZS6vc

Poke around if you need more, as they aren't hard to find. But in return, maybe I can get something in return beyond endless iterations of "is not" and "is too" and "it's merely."

Plenty can be explained without a survival advantage. Many things exist in ourselves that (as far as we know) do not confer a survival advantage. Who the hell have you been getting your info from?

I get my info from the evo-psych folks and their cheerleaders littered all over this and other forums. "It conferred a survival advantage" is the magic wand waved over virtually every trait they talk about. I'm not saying there's no truth to it, but it's also replete with assumptions and guesses and markers. That's way ok, except by the time it trickles down to this level, it's codified into law and sung faithfully by the "It's merely" chorus.

[The Grand Nudger]

The simplest way to explain "Hive Mind" is to use ants. Birds and fish flock or school, which is a migratory behavior, not nearly the same things as a "Hive Mind". Bees are more elaborate because of their directional dance. So I think I'll go with the ants for now, unless we have reason to delve any further.

Ants communicate by pheromones. They exhibit organized behavior, but how? There is no ant that flies overhead directing the others as to where to go or what to do. The "Queen" is an egg laying machine, but she is usually very much removed from the rest of the colony and in no way in control of the hive. Ants appear to have a set of standard operating procedures based on colony size and composition. Lets say that an ant is out and about in the world, how does he decide what to do? Well, he does whatever he was doing to begin with, for starters. He will encounter other ants also engaging in some activity or another, and these ants will make their activity known by those pheromones we mentioned. Now, for purposes of explanation, lets say that an ant expects to find 4 of 10 ants gathering food. He communicates with 3 ants who are gathering food. All is well. The 4th, is protecting the colony. Our intrepid ant will now stop what he is doing and become a forager. Every ant is doing this all at once. Interacting, abandoning and resuming activities. If there were only a few ants this wouldn't work, it would be a confused mess. This is why colonies must maintain a certain population or die. It takes all of them communicating with each other (and frequently) to produce organized behavior. There are exceptions to this, such as when a chemical trail is so strong that the ant simply abandons what he is doing and everyone hops aboard (cake on the ground). From these simple interactions ants produce some interesting results. From hive construction and layout to the act of "burying the dead" (admittedly in the midden heap with other trash, but that's more than most) This is what we observe. It obviously works for the ants. Ants are a wonderful example of how simple rules can create a self sustaining system, such as is the case in Conway's Game of Life. Now, is this suitable, or is there some mechanism at work we aren't seeing? A sort of "Soul" or "Communal Consciousness" of the ant colony? Maybe, but until we find evidence of that we'll go with what we see, and what works for the ants. You can test this yourself btw, ants are very easy to keep. This is a very very paired down explanation of how ants organize, I'd be willing to talk agricultural pests with you until the cows come home, but I think this works well enough for now.

You keep bringing up the quote, to which I've already responded. If you're going to continue asking questions and demanding answers while giving none in return, this will be a frustrating conversation for both sides. Is it surprising to you that I would disagree with a "giant in the field"? What authority does his status as a scientist confer to the statement that he made? I stand by my original response.

Regarding "It conferred an advantage". Firstly, do you have a different theory as to why some traits are present, or survive, and others do not? Lets call any given sequence of genes a trait for now.

Lets make three basic categories of traits
Confer Advantage
Confer Nothing
Confer Disadvantage

Now, any given trait will fall into one of these (sometimes more, evolution appears to be very specific to situation). Over a long period of time, and life has been going on for awhile, we would expect those traits that are successful to confer an advantage. In fact, we can observe the physical expression of these traits in many cases and see that they actually do. We can look at traits which are not successful, such as the that which produced either the teeth, or general size of Smilodon. This was once an advantage, we see that in the fossil record, but at some point it became a disadvantage. That species is now in the dustbin. So, when someone speculates that a trait must confer an advantage, they are basing that off of the prevalence of the trait, and observations of what happens when traits fail to confer any benefit (or indeed succeed in producing a disadvantage), extinction. There are many that are as of yet not understood and appear to be neutral. Hopefully you'll forgive me for couching this in common language, I could link you to a much more technical description of evolution by (insert theory here) if you like.

Now, there's a lot there in your post, and I originally wrote up a little rush job to respond. But why? You could do these subjects justice by creating a thread for them individually. It might also be useful to note that stumping an atheist or a materialist won't provide any evidence at all for your position. You must do that yourself.

(I was just perusing your link to the western buddhist review............ )

[Fred]

The simplest way to explain "Hive Mind" is to use ants. Birds and fish flock or school, which is a migratory behavior, not nearly the same things as a "Hive Mind". Bees are more elaborate because of their directional dance. So I think I'll go with the ants for now, unless we have reason to delve any further.

Uh, ok. But birds and fish exhibit group mind, which is what I asked about. You brought up hive mind. I enjoyed your explication, but I'm not sure what the conclusion was as far as demonstrating group mind or dismissing group mind.

You keep bringing up the quote, to which I've already responded.

No. You skipped over the main point. Still are. Why you won't touch it is best known to yourself, but the fact that you have is visible for all to see. One last chance: Do you agree or disagree that materialism is an a priori stance and why?

If you're going to continue asking questions and demanding answers while giving none in return, this will be a frustrating conversation for both sides. Is it surprising to you that I would disagree with a "giant in the field"? What authority does his status as a scientist confer to the statement that he made? I stand by my original response.

Has this shit worked for you in the past? Your original response was a stab at a subpoint, tossed off because you didn't know who the guy was and couldn't be bothered to find out, so you didn't even know who you were dismissing. What authority does his status as an eminent scientist confer on him to make the statement that materialism is an a priori stance? Uh, how about the crazy idea that he's qualified to speak on his own field, since he's an eminent player upon it? Is that somehow suspect?

Noticed you skipped over the bit about Dawkins. You are all aflutter about an expert speaking about his own field, yet have no problem with a guy waxing on about a domain he doesn't understand beyond the cartoon level? Uh, ok.

It might also be useful to note that stumping an atheist or a materialist won't provide any evidence at all for your position. You must do that yourself.

Heh. Small steps. You do realize that if you are correct in your assertion here that it also holds for the atheist as well, right? Kicking fundies may be good sport for you guys, but it does nothing to support the atheist or materialist position. The myths are wrong proves exactly that, nothing more. You ever call out anyone on your team on these points, or is this stuff just reserved for those you don't agree with?

Regardless, my position is that materialists and atheists hold problematic views they have difficulty supporting with reasoned discourse or evidence and that both positions are as faith-based as any other; the credo that either is based solely upon science and reason is a charade. And so far, it looks like I'm getting lots of help supporting it, thanks.

(I was just perusing your link to the western buddhist review............ )

Of course. Instant dismissal is always the first step. The second step, if pressed to take it, is finding the tree that you can chop down so as to then assert there is no forest. The third step, demonstrating that it's wrong, well, steps one and two are supposed to negate that bother.

[The Grand Nudger]

Two people dancing must be exhibiting group mind as well then. Maybe watch a few documentaries in slow mo and you'll realize that the birds and fish don't have an inside track to each others minds. They are reacting to the movements of those around them. They're good at it, we're not. It seems somehow mysterious to you, to me it does not.

I've addressed the "main point" of your quote. I wont do it again.

See above

( A note about Dawkins..You, are bringing up Dawkins. You're arguing with yourself here.)

Excellent the myths are wrong. Is there any mention of the existence of gods outside them? Thought not. You should have seen me rip into Kichi about CAM..lol.

Faith needs no evidence, my position is based upon it. That you can draw a parallel between these things says more about you than me.

I instantly dismissed the prospect of reading more apologetics (not exactly a tiny little screed is it), summarize them for me.
(No wait I'll do it. Science can't explain everything ergo god. Somehow I remain unconvinced.)