Mental imagery as non-physical experience

[AgnosticBoy]

On another thread, I argued that mental imagery is nonphysical in that it lacks physical characteristics. Some materialists disagreed offering nothing more than a future promise that we'll discover how they're "purely physical". Here's one description of a type of mental imagery:

A hallucination is a perception in the absence of external stimulus that has qualities of real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. They are distinguishable from these related phenomena: dreaming, which does not involve wakefulness; illusion, which involves distorted or misinterpreted real perception; imagery, which does not mimic real perception and is under voluntary control; and pseudohallucination, which does not mimic real perception, but is not under voluntary control.[1] Hallucinations also differ from "delusional perceptions", in which a correctly sensed and interpreted stimulus (i.e., a real perception) is given some additional (and typically absurd) significance.

Hallucinations can occur in any sensory modality—visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, proprioceptive, equilibrioceptive, nociceptive, thermoceptive and chronoceptive

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination

My view is that the perception of mental images constitutes an experience of something non-physical. For those who think otherwise, please do the following:

Explain how or why the experience of hallucinations is physical or of something physical.

[William]

[Replying to post 68 by Danmark]

Thoughts are products of a physical brain. When the brain is destroyed, thought is destroyed. As DI argues, there is no evidence of a thought that has ever existed in the absence of a physical brain to produce it.

Well DI's position is that of a materialist atheist floating around in the vacuum of alleged agnosticism, speaking of 'spiritual' folk as having their head up their bums, so what else can one expect?

The problem scientists would have with providing evidence that thought could exist outside the brain is that the evidence would have to be physical...it would be like asking Einstein to say something about the theory of general relativity. He is dead. So how can he do so?

Oh, that's right. He wrote things down.

So there is a clear case of thought existing outside of a brain. A clear case of thought existing before the content of the thought is made physical.

It is called 'writing'.

But hey, that is not what you are meaning, right? How do we capture those inner mental images and sounds and make physical representations of them? We know how, but when the brain dies we do not know if the individual consciousness lives on in some other state we cannot scientifically observe.

Of course, for a large variety of reasons many individuals think it is possible this is exactly what happens, and they are often mocked as have their heads up their butts, lacking intelligence, and generalized as being inferior to the intellectual community of the sciences and the wonderful humans who belong to those communities.

We know that thoughts are involved with the brain. We do not know that they are produts of the brain or that something else is going on which we cannot presently apply science to investigate.

If we did know for sure, either way, we wouldn't be here discussing and debating it.

[Divine Insight]

Your claim that thoughts are not always physical is just an opinion that has no evidence to back it up.

Are we then to define 'what is physical'? Why are you splitting hairs?

This has already been precisely defined in physics, so we don't need to ask this question.

That night, all I had was a blank slate - a grey screen without imagery - something I cannot recall every experiencing before. It had the effect of getting me to focus upon mental language - language which has no sound, and yet is still 'heard' as language in my mind. Another type of non physical experience happening within the mind-scape.

But here you go again, proclaiming something to be "non-physical" when physics disagrees with you. If there is any electrical activity occurring in your brain when you are having this experience, then there is no justification for you to be proclaiming it to be "non-physical".

So your claims are empty.

I'm not arguing that a worldview of pure materialism must then be true.

I'm simply pointing out the fact that your arguments have no merit at all.

That's all.

[Danmark]

Well DI's position is that of a materialist atheist floating around in the vacuum of alleged agnosticism, speaking of 'spiritual' folk as having their head up their bums, so what else can one expect?

This is a complete and vulgar misrepresentation of DI's position. Perhaps you could quote him rather than claim to summarize what he wrote.

So there is a clear case of thought existing outside of a brain. A clear case of thought existing before the content of the thought is made physical.

It is called 'writing'.

Nonsense.
Writing is not a thought existing outside the brain. Writing is a record of thoughts that occurred INSIDE the brain. Certainly what is written is outside the brain. But it was created by thought which resides in the brain. Then, the reader recreates the idea [or his interpretation of it inside his own brain.

[marco]

Well DI's position is that of a materialist atheist floating around in the vacuum of alleged agnosticism, speaking of 'spiritual' folk as having their head up their bums, so what else can one expect?

The original expression of this metaphor was suspect; you have made it earthier and we should avoid crude phraseology.



Moderator Comment

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator comments do not count as a strike against any posters. They only serve as an acknowledgment that a post report has been received, but has not been judged to warrant a moderator warning against a particular poster. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[ThePainefulTruth]

[Replying to post 1 by AgnosticBoy]


I agree. You, a heterosexual guy, we'll assume for the sake of argument, could have a dream about making love to Margo Robbie inside a rubber ball in orbit and therefore weightless. But then you wake up and she's not only gone, you know neither she nor you were ever there and was therefore a non-physical, that is imaginary experience--yet the physical evidence that the fantasy existed remains.

I hope this risque example doesn't offend anybody, but it couldn't have happened since I'm sure Margot has never been in orbit....physically.

Now, for the sake of argument, suppose they invented a mind link whereby people could share a given dream experience. Now make the further assumption that Margot agreed to dream with you as long as you're absolutely physically separated. But you get in the dream and you can't believe you're good luck, but Margot decides she's not gonna do nuthin' with no perv and screws up your dream. The one man dream was much better.

Now imagine there are 2 billion-septabjillion souls in the dream, all with untested free will--it would be a spiritual blood-bath of biblical proportions. Instead of nocturnal emissions, there would be psychic trauma that would result in the deaths of bajillions of physical people.

The only possible way there can be a subjective universe is if there is only one solipsist "living" it--and that would be me. But since I believe in an objective universe, everything is copacetic, so y'all get back to what you were doin', K.