A civil debate forum for people of all persuasions (Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Christians, and adherents of any religion)
|
Where is the Mind?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ... 36, 37, 38 Next
|
|
|
| Author |
Message |
harvey1
First Post |
 Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2006 7:52 am Post subject: Where is the Mind? |
 |
|
In another thread QED and I were discussing IGUSes (information gathering & utilizing systems: a term that physicist James Hartle articulated), and there's one issue I'd like to hear back from materialists of the mind. Where is the mind? By that I mean let's suppose that humans can only "see" atoms and sub-atomic particles (e.g., electrons). That's all that we can see. Now, using this illustration, please tell me in conceptual terms where the mind is. For example, if we look at a computer, we can see the operating system as atoms in energized states on what we normally see as a disk drive. We see how atoms are energized, how electrons flow, etc., upon the booting up of that computer, and we see why the computer works at an atomic level. However what we don't see--can never see--is anything but atoms and sub-atomic particles being shifted about inside the machine. So, I think we can quite naturally conclude that the computer has no internal state that is "non-atomic" in nature. That is, the computer has no awareness of itself, and no feelings, etc. (i.e., qualia).
So, being that we humans have this subjective inner state, I'd like to hear how materialists and identity theorists of mind (i.e., mind=brain) can conceptually account for the mind solely in terms of atomic and sub-atomic particles. Where is it among the stew of particles?
|
|
 |
QED Prodigy
Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Total posts: 3704 Location: UK Age: 62 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
28008.81 tokens
|
Post 131:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:35 am Post subject: |
|
|
| charles51 wrote: | | Yes, information is essentially order. In a material world ‘order’ is nothing more or less than the arrangement of physical matter in specific ways. Matter consists of particles and forces operating according to causal laws. Just because the particles are arranged in a specific way doesn’t overturn or invalidate these laws. This means that whatever complex arrangement these particles take, and whatever phenomenon might result from this, at no time can the phenomenon override and operate independently from the underlying particles and the causal laws which govern them. |
Yet such arrangements routinely give rise to new laws do they not? Irrespective of whether or not these new laws could be deduced prior to the event, you were arguing that natural selection would somehow be oblivious to all this and always be stuck with just the particles.
| Earlier charles51 wrote: | | An emergent phenomenon has no useful adaptation to the organism unless it can do something that the underlying interacting particles can’t. Since the emergent phenomenon’s physical properties are the very particles themselves, the phenomenon (as distinct from the particles) adds nothing useful to the organism. |
This statement continues to stand out as being wrong to me.
| charles51 wrote: |
Even if the phenomenon appears to act according to its own set of laws, those laws can only be a re-interpretation of basal laws operating at the atomic level. At no point can the higher level laws overturn and wrest control from the basal laws.
So when a materialist tells us emergent phenomena cannot be fully explained by the underlying atomic activity, this is either (A), an acknowledgment that humans are limited in their ability to analyze emergent phenomena in terms of their true underlying causes, or (B), it’s an admission that emergent phenomena have no underlying atomic structure. (A) is the same old materialism we’ve always known, and (B) is philosophical idealism. |
Well, I've already expressed my views about materialism. What I want to know is how we can be sure that whatever projects itself to us as matter does not itself supply a microscopic quantity of consciousness with each particle! I think I already mentioned that starting with the most fundamental living organisms we have to accept that the evolution of nervous systems results from the sensing and conditioned reflex to external stimulus. I don't see nature being prone to missing any tricks that particle systems offer in achieving this (e.g. quantum computation as per Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff). In my view if it's "there" and it "works" nature can discover it and run with it using the principles of natural selection. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| charles51 Apprentice Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Total posts: 147 Location: Virginia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups: None
1565.05 tokens
|
|
Post 132:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
QED,
| Quote: | | Yet such arrangements routinely give rise to new laws do they not? Irrespective of whether or not these new laws could be deduced prior to the event, you were arguing that natural selection would somehow be oblivious to all this and always be stuck with just the particles. |
If the actions of the phenomenon are the collective actions its particles, then all physical powers derive from the particles. The phenomenon adds no new powers not already inherrent in the particles and their causal interactions.
| Quote: | | This statement continues to stand out as being wrong to me. |
Okay, then you don't believe the emergent phenomenon is explicible in terms of particles and their activity. Philosophical idealism says the very same thing.
| Quote: | | Well, I've already expressed my views about materialism. What I want to know is how we can be sure that whatever projects itself to us as matter does not itself supply a microscopic quantity of consciousness with each particle! I think I already mentioned that starting with the most fundamental living organisms we have to accept that the evolution of nervous systems results from the sensing and conditioned reflex to external stimulus. I don't see nature being prone to missing any tricks that particle systems offer in achieving this (e.g. quantum computation as per Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff). In my view if it's "there" and it "works" nature can discover it and run with it using the principles of natural selection. |
You're suggesting that each atom and molecule is endowed with a tiny bit of consciousness? How does this help you theory? Atoms and molecules can’t purposefully choose how they act and react. Their actions are determined by physical laws. If this is true for the individual atoms and molecules, it's also true of the atoms and molecules collectively, for the collection is but the activity of its individual members. If at any time the collective action of the whole violates the lawful action of its individuals, the collective action is physically unaccounted for. Therefore, whatever laws describe the activity of the whole must be consistent with that underlying fact, and can only be regarded as new and different ways of describing the same thing.
Moreover, how does consciousness adhere to the individual atoms and molecules in the first place? Unless they have some property in common there is nothing to affix one to the other. They wouldn’t even exist for each other. |
_________________
Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| QED Prodigy
Joined: 30 Jan 2005 Total posts: 3704 Location: UK Age: 62 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
28008.81 tokens
|
|
Post 133:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 4:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Charles,
Of the two popular hypothesis on the table regarding the manner in which living things have come to be organised, only one involves a principle that can be readily be appreciated as being based on the self-discovery and utilization of whatever natural phenomenon can be pressed into service. I cannot seem to engage you in any consideration of the earliest of developments in living things (thereby eliminating the more emotive and complex issues of human consciousness). I think this approach has a great deal of merit given that all life on this planet is based on the same sort of molecular system. Perhaps you could explain why it seems you have no interest in looking at this from the "bottom up"? |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| charles51 Apprentice Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Total posts: 147 Location: Virginia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups: None
1565.05 tokens
|
|
Post 134:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
QED,
| Quote: | | Of the two popular hypothesis on the table regarding the manner in which living things have come to be organised, only one involves a principle that can be readily be appreciated as being based on the self-discovery and utilization of whatever natural phenomenon can be pressed into service. I cannot seem to engage you in any consideration of the earliest of developments in living things (thereby eliminating the more emotive and complex issues of human consciousness). I think this approach has a great deal of merit given that all life on this planet is based on the same sort of molecular system. Perhaps you could explain why it seems you have no interest in looking at this from the "bottom up"? |
I’m not entirely sure what you’re even claiming. According to conventional materialism, all causes are “bottom up”. That's what I've been saying. I don’t understand how you can posit a physical system that operates according to physical laws but can, at the same time, operate by some kind of self-directed action not determined by those same laws. These are contradictory claims.
In other words, if a physical system operates by two different sets of laws, those laws must be compatible. At no time can one set of laws override and contradict the other set. Each is but a different way of viewing the other. |
_________________
Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes
Last edited by charles51 on Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:19 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bernee51 Site SupporterSavant
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Total posts: 6523 Location: Australia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
42426.81 tokens
|
|
Post 135:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| charles51 wrote: | Bernee,
| Quote: | | Account for...I haven't a clue. Atoms and molecules come together, in stages, to form what we know as consciousness. |
This admission may suggest a serious shortcoming in your philosophy. |
If it were your philosophy it may suggest a short-coming. How would it be so?
for mine, it may or may not.
| charles51 wrote: |
James is only denying that our experience of consciousness is a subject/object relation. He’s right. We don't experience our experiences; we ARE our experiences. The subject (or Self) is omnipresent in the experience. But in no sense does this lessen its reality. Indeed, it's the only instance in which we actually 'touch' reality. |
So the experiencer, the act of experiencing and the experienced are the same? |
_________________
"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."
Nisargadatta Maharaj |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bernee51Site SupporterSavant
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Total posts: 6523 Location: Australia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
42426.81 tokens
|
|
Post 136:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 8:49 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| charles51 wrote: | Bernee,
I curious about your tag, "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion."
This severely materialistic view doesn't sound compatible with your philosophy, although it does contain a humorous contradiction. Is that why you use it? |
Charles,
I like the irony. If Democritus had been up with quantum theory he may have modified it to "Nothing exists..." |
_________________
"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."
Nisargadatta Maharaj |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| charles51 Apprentice Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Total posts: 147 Location: Virginia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups: None
1565.05 tokens
|
|
Post 137:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 9:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Bernee,
All due respect, I don't think Democritus would ever claim "Nothing exists", as that is a flat out contradiction. Although I have known intelligent minds who should know better make that claim. |
_________________
Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes
Last edited by charles51 on Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:40 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| charles51 Apprentice Joined: 15 Aug 2006 Total posts: 147 Location: Virginia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups: None
1565.05 tokens
|
|
Post 138:
Mon Aug 28, 2006 10:38 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Bernee,
| Quote: | | If it were your philosophy it may suggest a short-coming. How would it be so? |
A philosophy that can’t offer a conceptual and logically consistent accounting for the interaction of mind and matter would undermine any reason for believing the physical evidence presented for it.
| Quote: | | So the experiencer, the act of experiencing and the experienced are the same? |
Yes. |
_________________
Eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. -- Sherlock Holmes |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bernee51Site SupporterSavant
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Total posts: 6523 Location: Australia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
42426.81 tokens
|
|
Post 139:
Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:27 am Post subject: |
|
|
| charles51 wrote: | Bernee,
All due respect, I don't think Democritus would ever claim "Nothing exists", as that is a flat out contradiction. Although I have known intelligent minds who should know better make that claim. |
Your "due respect" is noted. I neglected to put  after my "Nothing exists..." |
_________________
"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."
Nisargadatta Maharaj |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bernee51Site SupporterSavant
Joined: 10 Aug 2004 Total posts: 6523 Location: Australia Age: 59 Gender: Male
Usergroups:
42426.81 tokens
|
|
Post 140:
Wed Aug 30, 2006 12:37 am Post subject: |
|
|
Charles,
| charles51 wrote: |
A philosophy that can’t offer a conceptual and logically consistent accounting for the interaction of mind and matter would undermine any reason for believing the physical evidence presented for it. |
Fair enough.
Can you offer a philosophy that provides a conceptual and logically consistent accounting for the interaction of mind and matter? |
_________________
"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two."
Nisargadatta Maharaj |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
 |
Debating Christianity and Religion Forum Index
-> Philosophy |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 ... 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 ... 36, 37, 38 Next
|
| Page 14 of 38 |
|
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
