Brain / Mind

[InReverse]

Here are some facts (the list should be longer but it can be extended if needed):
-Damage to certain brain areas causes predictable loss of function. There is list with types of agnosias here.
There are also documented cases of damage to functions such as memory formation.(H.M.)
-Split brain patients cannot verbally relate to information presented only to their right hemisphere, but can nonetheless react to it unconsciously. (ref)
-Certain substances alter the function of the brain (by known mechanisms) and also the state of consciousness (alcohol, drugs, anesthetics)

Question: "Is evidence from neuroscience sufficient for one to reject the mind-brain dualism?"
If not, how does one reconcile the facts above (and many others) with the separation between mind and brain. Also, how would you disprove "minds are what brains do".

[instantc]

An example of such a conclusion would have to do with Aristotle's theory of gravity, which held that heavier objects fall faster than lighter. Without any additional testing or data from the real world, one could figure out by logic alone that this is not the case.

How?

Well, if I would chain together a light and a heavy object, then that would be an even heavier object and it should fall even faster than the heavy object alone. However, the lighter object would also work as a brake for the heavier object, which would mean that the combination would fall slower than the original heavy object. This thought experiment alone shows that Aristotelian theory of gravity contradicts itself and cannot be true in the real world.

and a priori knowledge concluding that it cannot be reduced to physical brain activity on the other hand.

This is a negative claim. What POSITIVE claims does property dualism make?

It does not make any positive claims, it is merely a rejection of narrow physicalism, just like atheism is merely a rejection of certain God theories. Once we stop banging our heads to the wall trying to figure out how emotions can be reduced to physical movement of neurons, maybe one day we'll start making actual progress regarding the mind/brain dilemma.

It seems that the only thing propping it up is word games and question begging because whenever i ask you to explain what mental properties actually are (I.E., what they are made of. What they fundamentally are.), you shy away from answering directly and give vague and nonspecific answers like "its not physical".

What I can do is give examples of mental experiences and argue why they cannot be reduced to physical brain activity, I don't know what their fundamental nature is. What follows from that for property dualism? Nothing, it just shows that I don't know much about the metaphysics of the mental properties. My arguments are merely directed to reject one side of the reductionism/dualism dichotomy.

I have repeatedly rejected this strawman. The brain is not identical to the mind. A mind is an EMERGENT PROPERTY of a brain. Emergence does not equate to "identical". Emergence is not a synonym for "identical".

You previously said that flocking is equivalent to the movement of many birds. Yes, it is. But flocking is not "identical" to many birds. Likewise, a bunch of neurons is not "identical" to a mind. The neurons actually have to be working and in a certain configuration just as birds have to be moving in a certain configuration to be considered "flocking".

This seems to be our main disagreement and I think you are confusing identity with something else here. If flocking is equivalent to the movement of many birds like you affirm, then flocking IS identical to the movement of those birds. Accordingly, if the mind is an emergent physical property of the brain caused by brain activity, then the mind IS identical to that physical brain activity.

However, I have argued that this cannot be the case, let me respond to your objections to that argument.

For the sake of argument, lets say that the mind is identical to brain activity. How does the ability to conceive of one without the other PROVE they are not identical?

According to the law of identity, which is one of the classical laws of thought, identity is a necessary relation. If one can conceive a world where A exists independently of B, then A in fact is not B. For example, a world where there is a hurricane but no moving air is inconceivable, just like a world where it is raining but there is no liquid coming down from the sky. In our case that would mean that mental properties don't equal physical brain activity.

Are you objecting to the law of identity or my wrongful application of it?

Here's a short wikipedia article on the law of identity, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity

2) if i can conceive of X existing without Y that does NOT necessitate (a) that X is not contingent upon Y or (b) that X is not emergent from Y.

I contend that (b) follows. Try to conceive bird flocking without any birds doing the flocking, for example.

[keithprosser3]

a hurricane but no moving air is inconceivable, just like a world where it is raining but there is no liquid coming down from the sky. In our case that would mean that mental properties don't equal physical brain activity.

Hmm... it seems to me that the first two examples are contradictions in terms - a hurricane without moving air is inconceivable because a hurricane is defined as moving air, and rain is defined as liquid from the sky. I don't see if that applies to mental properties and brain activities, which are not defined in terms of each other.

A mental phenomenon - such as a thought - may be a consequence of brain activity (an emergent consequence, possibly) but "thought" or "the preception of a pain" - is not identical to "neurons exchanging electro-chemical signals", but thoughts (or pains) would not exist without neurons exchanging electro-magnetic signals or some analogous physicality in an 'artificial brain'.

[instantc]

a hurricane but no moving air is inconceivable, just like a world where it is raining but there is no liquid coming down from the sky. In our case that would mean that mental properties don't equal physical brain activity.

Hmm... it seems to me that the first two examples are contradictions in terms - a hurricane without moving air is inconceivable because a hurricane is defined as moving air, and rain is defined as liquid from the sky. I don't see if that applies to mental properties and brain activities, which are not defined in terms of each other.

The point I am making is that one cannot conceive hurricane without air, because hurricane is just an emergent physical structure of moving air. The terms are also contradicting because we know for certainty that hurricane is in fact just rapidly moving air.

[scourge99]

a hurricane but no moving air is inconceivable, just like a world where it is raining but there is no liquid coming down from the sky. In our case that would mean that mental properties don't equal physical brain activity.

Hmm... it seems to me that the first two examples are contradictions in terms - a hurricane without moving air is inconceivable because a hurricane is defined as moving air, and rain is defined as liquid from the sky. I don't see if that applies to mental properties and brain activities, which are not defined in terms of each other.

The point I am making is that one cannot conceive hurricane without air, because hurricane is just an emergent physical structure of moving air. The terms are also contradicting because we know for certainty that hurricane is in fact just rapidly moving air.

If i don't know what a hurricane is made of i certainly can conceive of it without air. That is, i can conceive of something impossible.

As i have repeatedly said before, ontological, modal logic, and other naval gazing exercises are not reliable methods to acquire unprecedented knowledge about the real world.

[instantc]

The point I am making is that one cannot conceive hurricane without air, because hurricane is just an emergent physical structure of moving air. The terms are also contradicting because we know for certainty that hurricane is in fact just rapidly moving air.

If i don't know what a hurricane is made of i certainly can conceive of it without air. That is, i can conceive of something impossible.

I don't think this is the case, even if you are not sure what the hurricane consists of, as a matter of fact you are still merely conceiving rapidly moving air, whether or not you know what you are looking at or not. You cannot separate the hurricane from the moving air, not even in your mind, because they are identical, as the hurricane is a physical structure consisting of the air.

This is not the case with the mind at all. Knowing that the mind is an emergent property of the brain, and knowing what fibers and neurons look like, one can still separate the feeling of pain from physical C-fibers and conceive one without the other. Therefore the two are not identical, and the feeling of pain is not reducible to physical brain activity.

We can merely conceive a hurricane without conceiving what it consists of, but we can in fact conceive an emotion separately from any brain activity.

[keithprosser3]

I think we have to be careful and not get bogged down with a lot of hot air about hurricanes.

The non-identity of experience and brain activity may be clearer if we think about pleasure and pain. Suppose (as is reasonable) that pain is associated with neural activity in one part of the brain and neural pleasure with neural activity in another part.

The difference between pleasure and pain might be 'place' but it doesn't feel that way.

It is one thing to say that neural activity in the pain centre is perceived as pain and neural activity in the pleasure centre felt as pleasure, but that doesn't explain why pain feels like pain and why pleasure feels like pleasure.

[scourge99]

An example of such a conclusion would have to do with Aristotle's theory of gravity, which held that heavier objects fall faster than lighter. Without any additional testing or data from the real world, one could figure out by logic alone that this is not the case.

How?

Well, if I would chain together a light and a heavy object, then that would be an even heavier object and it should fall even faster than the heavy object alone. However, the lighter object would also work as a brake for the heavier object, which would mean that the combination would fall slower than the original heavy object. This thought experiment alone shows that Aristotelian theory of gravity contradicts itself and cannot be true in the real world.

If you chain together a lighter and heavier object it doesn't make a single heavier object. It makes 2 separate objects that are chained together. They don't act upon one another except through the chain. If you had two balls of clay, one heavier than the other, and then mashed them together, then you would have a single heavier object or if you had two balls of clay and stuck a solid rod in between them that too would act like a single heavier object. But just chaining them together does not. So your objection does not pan out.

and a priori knowledge concluding that it cannot be reduced to physical brain activity on the other hand.

This is a negative claim. What POSITIVE claims does property dualism make?

It does not make any positive claims, it is merely a rejection of narrow physicalism, just like atheism is merely a rejection of certain God theories.

I disagree. If it was merely skepticism of physicalism then it would simply reject physicalism claims as unjustified or unwarranted. But it does more than that. Property dualism makes the POSITIVE counter claim that "mental properties" exist yet somehow magically manifest from matter. Its not just skepticism of physicalist claims.

Atheism, is the rejection of god claims. It is NOT the claim the gods do not exist. Certainly one can claim gods do not exist and be considered an atheist but it's not required. But that's a debate on definitions i don't care to go into again. People define "atheism" differently much like how people have varying definitions for words like "god", "spiritual", and "freewill".

Once we stop banging our heads to the wall trying to figure out how emotions can be reduced to physical movement of neurons, maybe one day we'll start making actual progress regarding the mind/brain dilemma.

Its not simply the movement of individual neurons, just like the ability of your computer to display an image is not just the movement of electrons. Its a process of much more.

As someone who is married, i can assure you that emotions are definitely tied to the physical. I can attest to this once a month, if you catch my drift.

It seems that the only thing propping it up is word games and question begging because whenever i ask you to explain what mental properties actually are (I.E., what they are made of. What they fundamentally are.), you shy away from answering directly and give vague and nonspecific answers like "its not physical".

What I can do is give examples of mental experiences and argue why they cannot be reduced to physical brain activity, I don't know what their fundamental nature is.

Then you are completely incapable of determining if "mental properties" are actually real or not. These mental properties that PROPERTY dualism proposes may be constructs or an illusion no more "real" than the concepts of chair, coldness, or time.

What follows from that for property dualism? Nothing, it just shows that I don't know much about the metaphysics of the mental properties. My arguments are merely directed to reject one side of the reductionism/dualism dichotomy.

If this was true then you wouldn't be attempting to utilize the special term "mental properties" so often in this debate.

I have repeatedly rejected this strawman. The brain is not identical to the mind. A mind is an EMERGENT PROPERTY of a brain. Emergence does not equate to "identical". Emergence is not a synonym for "identical".

You previously said that flocking is equivalent to the movement of many birds. Yes, it is. But flocking is not "identical" to many birds. Likewise, a bunch of neurons is not "identical" to a mind. The neurons actually have to be working and in a certain configuration just as birds have to be moving in a certain configuration to be considered "flocking".

This seems to be our main disagreement and I think you are confusing identity with something else here. If flocking is equivalent to the movement of many birds like you affirm, then flocking IS identical to the movement of those birds. Accordingly, if the mind is an emergent physical property of the brain caused by brain activity, then the mind IS identical to that physical brain activity.

However, I have argued that this cannot be the case, let me respond to your objections to that argument.

For the sake of argument, lets say that the mind is identical to brain activity. How does the ability to conceive of one without the other PROVE they are not identical?

According to the law of identity, which is one of the classical laws of thought, identity is a necessary relation. If one can conceive a world where A exists independently of B, then A in fact is not B.

I don't think that's true. Suppose i don't know that rain is comprised of water molecules because I've only seen it from youtube videos. I can conceive of a rain without water molecules and i can conceive of rain without conceiving water molecules.

For example, a world where there is a hurricane but no moving air is inconceivable, just like a world where it is raining but there is no liquid coming down from the sky.

Only because we know a posteriori that hurricanes are caused by wind and that rain is liquid. If we didn't know these things then we can conceive of them occurring without any knowledge of what they are made of. And the only reason we know what they are made of is because we examined them in the real world. Not because we sat on our couch naval gazing.

We don't know exactly how minds arise from working brains so it is possible to conceive of one without the other. But if we discover how exactly minds arise from working brains then it will be absurd to conceive of minds without a brain just as it is absurd to conceive of hurricanes without wind.

To use an example that used widely: goldbachs conjecture.

Its not been proven that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. But we can conceive that someone finds a number that is even which is not the sum of two primes. But if goldbachs conjecture is true then we have conceived of something logically impossible. Thus, conceivability is not a reliable means to determine what is actually possible or impossible.

In our case that would mean that mental properties don't equal physical brain activity.

Are you objecting to the law of identity or my wrongful application of it?

Here's a short wikipedia article on the law of identity, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_identity

2) if i can conceive of X existing without Y that does NOT necessitate (a) that X is not contingent upon Y or (b) that X is not emergent from Y.

I contend that (b) follows. Try to conceive bird flocking without any birds doing the flocking, for example.

That's because we've narrowly defined "flocking" to "bird flocking". Is it inconceivable for flocking to occur without birds? Only if you define "flocking" as requiring birds. I can conceive of flying squirrels flocking.

[instantc]

An example of such a conclusion would have to do with Aristotle's theory of gravity, which held that heavier objects fall faster than lighter. Without any additional testing or data from the real world, one could figure out by logic alone that this is not the case.

How?

Well, if I would chain together a light and a heavy object, then that would be an even heavier object and it should fall even faster than the heavy object alone. However, the lighter object would also work as a brake for the heavier object, which would mean that the combination would fall slower than the original heavy object. This thought experiment alone shows that Aristotelian theory of gravity contradicts itself and cannot be true in the real world.

If you chain together a lighter and heavier object it doesn't make a single heavier object. If you had two balls of clay, one heavier than the other, and then mashed them together, then you would have a single heavier object or if you had two balls of clay and stuck a solid rod in between them that too would act like a single heavier object.

Elasticity between parts of an object doesn't change the fact that it is still one object. However, this does not change the argument in any case, put a solid rod between them and the contradiction still stands. The object should fall faster than the original heavy object, but at the same time the attached lighter object should brake the heavy object down.

I disagree. If it was merely skepticism of physicalism then it would simply reject physicalism claims as unjustified or unwarranted. But it does more than that. Property dualism makes the POSITIVE counter claim that "mental properties" exist yet somehow magically manifest from matter. Its not just skepticism of physicalist claims.

If mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties, then they have to exist as separate properties of the brain. So yes, irreducibility is the only claim property dualism makes.

Atheism, is the rejection of god claims. It is NOT the claim the gods do not exist. Certainly one can claim gods do not exist and be considered an atheist but it's not required.

But, if you really think what atheist is about, it is defaulting to God's non-existence, since there are no good reason to believe God exists, and perhaps some reasons to believe God does not exist. Property dualism is a bit stronger position than weak atheism, since we have some good arguments against narrow materialism.

Once we stop banging our heads to the wall trying to figure out how emotions can be reduced to physical movement of neurons, maybe one day we'll start making actual progress regarding the mind/brain dilemma.

Its not simply the movement of individual neurons, just like the ability of your computer to display an image is not just the movement of electrons. Its a process of much more.

What do you mean by much more, are you still referring to physical movement of particles?

Then you are completely incapable of determining if "mental properties" are actually real or not. These mental properties that PROPERTY dualism proposes may be constructs or an illusion no more "real" than the concepts of chair, coldness, or time.

I agree, they could be illusions created by the brain. But, in absence of good arguments, there is no reason not to trust our strong experience of the self and mental properties. You agreed that Cogito Ergu Sum proves that there is something that does the thinking, something that is being deceived by these illusions. Mere ability of being deceived and to think are such mental properties, which are hardly similar to anything we can observe in the brain.

Only because we know a posteriori that hurricanes are caused by wind and that rain is liquid. If we didn't know these things then we can conceive of them occurring without any knowledge of what they are made of. And the only reason we know what they are made of is because we examined them in the real world. Not because we sat on our couch naval gazing.

We don't know exactly how minds arise from working brains so it is possible to conceive of one without the other. But if we discover how exactly minds arise from working brains then it will be absurd to conceive of minds without a brain just as it is absurd to conceive of hurricanes without wind.

I take your point with the hurricane. But, we know that the mind is a property of the brain emerging from the observable brain activity, and yet we can clearly and undoubtedly conceive one without the other as if they were completely different things. It seems absurd to think that if we figured out exactly what kind of physical movement of particles causes the consciousness, we would lose our ability to separate the two completely from each other.

To use an example that used widely: goldbachs conjecture.

Its not been proven that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. But we can conceive that someone finds a number that is even which is not the sum of two primes. But if goldbachs conjecture is true then we have conceived of something logically impossible. Thus, conceivability is not a reliable means to determine what is actually possible or impossible.

Right, this is similar to the evening star/morning star argument brought up by ooberman. It seems to me however, that what you are imagining someone proving false is not Goldbach's conjecture at all, you are merely conceiving a scientist acting as if he would have falsified the conjecture.

I contend that (b) follows. Try to conceive bird flocking without any birds doing the flocking, for example.

That's because we've narrowly defined "flocking" to "bird flocking". Is it inconceivable for flocking to occur without birds? Only if you define "flocking" as requiring birds. I can conceive of flying squirrels flocking.

I can't see what point you are making here, I was talking merely about bird flocking. Can you conceive flying squirrels flocking without flying squirrels?

[keithprosser3]

I have no idea whether flying squirrels do actually flock, but if they did then flocking would be the thing that flocking birds and flocking squirrels have in common.

Conceiving flocking without birds (or squirrels) is no different from conceiving of 'three' in the abstract, divorced from being instanced as three stones or three oranges etc.

[scourge99]

An example of such a conclusion would have to do with Aristotle's theory of gravity, which held that heavier objects fall faster than lighter. Without any additional testing or data from the real world, one could figure out by logic alone that this is not the case.

How?

Well, if I would chain together a light and a heavy object, then that would be an even heavier object and it should fall even faster than the heavy object alone. However, the lighter object would also work as a brake for the heavier object, which would mean that the combination would fall slower than the original heavy object. This thought experiment alone shows that Aristotelian theory of gravity contradicts itself and cannot be true in the real world.

If you chain together a lighter and heavier object it doesn't make a single heavier object. If you had two balls of clay, one heavier than the other, and then mashed them together, then you would have a single heavier object or if you had two balls of clay and stuck a solid rod in between them that too would act like a single heavier object.

Elasticity between parts of an object doesn't change the fact that it is still one object. However, this does not change the argument in any case, put a solid rod between them and the contradiction still stands. The object should fall faster than the original heavy object, but at the same time the attached lighter object should brake the heavy object down.

If the two objects act identical to a single heavier object then the two combined objects will fall at the same speed as the single object because they act like a single heavy object. There is no reason to suggest that the smaller object will brake the bigger one. If the objects are separated then they act according to their weight individually. There is no logical contradiction here at all. There is only a contradiction when you perform the test IN THE REAL WORLD and the hypothesized results do not match the theory.

Simply naval gazing about the possible results without any real data to constrain the possibilities leaves us with a seemingly infinite amount of ways to invent explanations. Some will be logically contradictory but there are plenty that are not. That is why getting data from the real world is so important.

I disagree. If it was merely skepticism of physicalism then it would simply reject physicalism claims as unjustified or unwarranted. But it does more than that. Property dualism makes the POSITIVE counter claim that "mental properties" exist yet somehow magically manifest from matter. Its not just skepticism of physicalist claims.

If mental properties cannot be reduced to physical properties, then they have to exist as separate properties of the brain. So yes, irreducibility is the only claim property dualism makes.

And you haven't shown that physical properties can't be reduced to physical properties. You are merely presenting an argument from incredulity and extreme skepticism about the arguments i have presented.

You haven't even attempted to make a POSITIVE case for this realm of existence where mental properties exist yet somehow magically arise from matter. The only thing you've done is try to punch holes in physicalist claims. Its very similar to how Young Earth creationists think that if they point out enough problems with evolution then somehow it magically makes young earth creationism true. It doesn't. An explanation stands on its own merits. Not on the failure of other explanations.

Atheism, is the rejection of god claims. It is NOT the claim the gods do not exist. Certainly one can claim gods do not exist and be considered an atheist but it's not required.

But, if you really think what atheist is about, it is defaulting to God's non-existence, since there are no good reason to believe God exists, and perhaps some reasons to believe God does not exist. Property dualism is a bit stronger position than weak atheism, since we have some good arguments against narrow materialism.

But property dualism isn't just a rejection of certain materialist claims. It has its own claim about "mental properties". Its not analogous to weak atheism. Its more analogous to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%ABlism. Sure they don't believe in god but then they have all these counter claims that they don't justify. Just because there aren't good reasons to believe in god doesn't mean that Raelien counter claims are warranted.

Once we stop banging our heads to the wall trying to figure out how emotions can be reduced to physical movement of neurons, maybe one day we'll start making actual progress regarding the mind/brain dilemma.

Its not simply the movement of individual neurons, just like the ability of your computer to display an image is not just the movement of electrons. Its a process of much more.

What do you mean by much more, are you still referring to physical movement of particles?

I'm saying that a computer's ability to present an image isn't just an arrangement or movement of electrons. Its a process that involves moving electrons, but also the architecture of the circuits, and the state of the hard drive, RAM, cache, etc.

That is why its a simplification to say "the mind is just a bunch of neurons". Its not just a jumble of neurons that make the mind.

Then you are completely incapable of determining if "mental properties" are actually real or not. These mental properties that PROPERTY dualism proposes may be constructs or an illusion no more "real" than the concepts of chair, coldness, or time.

I agree, they could be illusions created by the brain.

Or constructs used to explain higher level concepts. E.G., "chair".

Sean Carroll gives a good explanation of this in this video. I've linked to the specific part of the video at 40m:34s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... I#t=40m34s

But, in absence of good arguments, there is no reason not to trust our strong experience of the self and mental properties.

Until you can actually explain what mental properties are, it seems to me they are just constructs. And asserting some magical and unprecedented realm where mental properties exist is as outrageous as claiming that there is a magical realm of existence where the atoms that make up a chair reside but it is a separate realm of existence than the one the chair exists in. its a very unparsimonious explanation that has no real data to support it.

You agreed that Cogito Ergu Sum proves that there is something that does the thinking, something that is being deceived by these illusions.

1) I never claimed they were illusions. That is one option.

2) cogito ergo sum is in a completely different category than "mental properties". Cogito ergo sum cannot be denied because to do so is to contradict oneself. That is not true about these so called "mental properties" existing in some separate realm of existence. I can easily deny that some magical realm of "mental properties" exists without contradicting myself. In fact, i just did.

Mere ability of being deceived and to think are such mental properties, which are hardly similar to anything we can observe in the brain.

we aren't going to observe "mental properties" by looking at individual neurons just like we can't observe chairs by looking at individual atoms of chairs.

Only because we know a posteriori that hurricanes are caused by wind and that rain is liquid. If we didn't know these things then we can conceive of them occurring without any knowledge of what they are made of. And the only reason we know what they are made of is because we examined them in the real world. Not because we sat on our couch naval gazing.

We don't know exactly how minds arise from working brains so it is possible to conceive of one without the other. But if we discover how exactly minds arise from working brains then it will be absurd to conceive of minds without a brain just as it is absurd to conceive of hurricanes without wind.

I take your point with the hurricane. But, we know that the mind is a property of the brain emerging from the observable brain activity, and yet we can clearly and undoubtedly conceive one without the other as if they were completely different things. It seems absurd to think that if we figured out exactly what kind of physical movement of particles causes the consciousness, we would lose our ability to separate the two completely from each other.

Not if the mind is an emergent property of a brain.

To use an example that used widely: goldbachs conjecture.

Its not been proven that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two primes. But we can conceive that someone finds a number that is even which is not the sum of two primes. But if goldbachs conjecture is true then we have conceived of something logically impossible. Thus, conceivability is not a reliable means to determine what is actually possible or impossible.

Right, this is similar to the evening star/morning star argument brought up by ooberman. It seems to me however, that what you are imagining someone proving false is not Goldbach's conjecture at all, you are merely conceiving a scientist acting as if he would have falsified the conjecture.

No, I am saying that suppose it is true that every even number greater than 2 can be represented as the sum of two primes. But suppose Joe doesn't know that. Nonetheless Joe conceives that there exists a number that is even and also isn't the sum of two primes. Joe is conceiving of something logically impossible. Thus, conceiving of something as possible doesn't mean it actually is possible. In fact, it could be logically impossible.

So the ability to conceive that the mind is separate from the brain doesn't do a damn thing to support the claim that the mind isn't the product of the brain just because you can conceive it. Conceiving of something is not a reliable means to determine whether something is logically possible. Furthermore, it certainly isn't a good means to determine whether its possible in the real world. This is a similar line of reasoning why others reject ontological arguments.

I contend that (b) follows. Try to conceive bird flocking without any birds doing the flocking, for example.

That's because we've narrowly defined "flocking" to "bird flocking". Is it inconceivable for flocking to occur without birds? Only if you define "flocking" as requiring birds. I can conceive of flying squirrels flocking.

I can't see what point you are making here, I was talking merely about bird flocking. Can you conceive flying squirrels flocking without flying squirrels?

The point i was trying to make is that flocking is not contingent on conceiving birds specifically (granted, the vocabulary indicates it it a "bird thing".). Flocking (per Wikipedia):"flocking" is the collective motion of a large number of self-propelled entities and is a collective animal behavior exhibited by many living beings such as birds, fish, bacteria, and insects.[1] It is considered an emergent behavior arising from simple rules that are followed by individuals ...