What are your thoughts?

Debate Room
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Does anyone have any thoughts on the Mind-Body Problem?

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What problem? The mind is a manifestation of brain. Speech is a manifestation of vocal chords. Sight is a manifestation of eyes. Your division is arbitrary. It’s similar to asserting there is a, “hair / body split,” or a “Liquid /solid split.” Demonstrate a mind without a body.

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It is a debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. I just read about it, and was wondering what y’all thought about it.

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@Cognostic Here is some more on the subject.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-consciousness/202105/what-is-phenomenal-consciousness%3Famp

I don’t have any theories or anything yet. I am still researching it. But some questions are forming that are new and intriguing to me.

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I consider my “mind” as a result of being self-aware.

That’s it, I like to keep things simple.

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@David_Killens
These are two articles that discuss self- awareness, consciousness, that I am reading in relation to your comment.
Something else you said actually sort of brought me to this subject, so thank you! I am fascinated.

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This question arises when mind and body are considered as distinct, based on the premise that the mind and the body are fundamentally different in nature.[3] (I did this as a Freshman at University.) ***Demonstrate a mind without a body. *** Absent any evidence your assertion is groundless. It’s philosophical chewing gum for the mind and nothing more.

FROM THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE YOU CITE ABOVE."

“The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind (if there is such a thing) and its physical extension (if there is such a thing) has been raised as a criticism of dualism, and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body.”

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Well I think there are many old hippies who used LSD regularly that would argue that point with you…

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@skriten Ha! I just imagined Descartes as a hippie.

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244389652_3050133678644526_5840860543623405600_n718×600 39 KB

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Mind-Body problem?.. Uhhh…

“Mind over matter.”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”
“Do you mind?”
“Gonna give him a piece of my mind.”
“I have half a mind to…”
“Mind your own business.”
“If you don’t mind…”
“A true mastermind.”
“Mind your manners.”
“Playing mind games.”
“Giving you peace of mind.”
“A beautiful mind.”
“In the church of the poison mind.” (Thank you, Boy George.)
“Please mind the store while I step out for a bit.”
“Blows my mind.”
“Pay no nevermind to them.”
“Mind of a child.”
“Of mind, body, and soul.”

So, what’s the problem?

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Oh Fuk! I recant in initial assumption and bow to your superior intellect. I should know that, “Any reality is only an opinion, after all, we each make up our own reality. My facts are just as subjective as the next persons.” I just need to learn to grow with the flow, and start thinking for myself instead of relying so heavily on the experts. (Fuck… wrong again… I’m going to grab a cookie and go to my room.)

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Here’s that cookie thing again. Has Tin-Man been away from the house quite a bit lately?

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Well it crossed my mind that I have had a lot on my mind lately.I realize that I should try to have an open mind,which brings to mind the notion that you may be out of your mind. I know you would want me to speak my mind and I realize you have a mind of your own, but I have something in mind, if you don’t mind please.Try not to have a one track mind and try to take your mind off of that important thing that slipped your mind.I realize you are not in your right mind, but I really really don’t mind.Just try to keep in mind that it broadens the mind to explore mindfulness and to mind your p’s and q’s as well…

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I’ve tried broadening my mind before, but Cog is pretty damn selfish with his rolling pin. And I’m afraid I don’t have any p’s and q’s. What few I once had all got traded in for vowels. Mostly I’s, O’s, and U’s since they are the ones I always use the most.

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@Cognostic
Okay, I am going to post this here–it isn’t a fully formed question but perhaps you can see the pieces of it as I do. Perhaps not, we shall see presently.

I just happened to stumble upon the Mind -Body Problem while searching something related to a comment from David.
Like the Hard Problem of Consciousness, the Mind -Body Problem concerns the question of “how experience arises out of non-sentient matter”(Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia) [David Chalmers]

Consciousness is an ambiguous term. It can be used to mean self consciousness, awareness, the state of being awake, and so on. Chalmers uses the same
definition of consciousness as Thomas Nagel “the feeling of what it is like to be something.”

Consciousness, in this sense, is synonymous with experience.

Even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: “Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?”

According to Chalmers the problem of consciousness consists of two problems: the “easy problems” and the “hard problem”.

The easy problems may include how sensory systems work, how such data is processed in the brain, how that data influences behaviour or verbal reports, the neural basis of thought and emotion, and so on. The hard problem is the problem of “why” and “how” those processes are accompanied by experience.

According to Chalmers experience is more than the sum of its parts. In other words, experience is irreducible.

A perfect replica of a clock is a clock, a perfect replica of a hurricane is a hurricane, and a perfect replica of a behaviour is that behaviour. Unlike a clock, a hurricane, or the easy problems, descriptions of structures and functions leave something out of the picture. These functions and structures could conceivably exist in the absence of experience. Alternatively, they could exist alongside a different set of experiences. It is logically possible (though naturally impossible) for a perfect replica of Chalmers to have no experience at all.

Yet, it is logically possible for a replica to have a different set of experiences, such as an inverted visible spectrum. The same cannot be said about clocks, hurricanes, or the easy problems. The difference, Chalmers argues, is that experience is not logically entailed by lower order structures and functions; it is not the sum of its physical parts. This means that experience is impervious to reductive analysis, and therefore poses a hard problem.

So, a reoccurring question has been: What evidence do you have of God?

The answers that theists supply most often either have to do with personal experience or physical phenomena, in a limpid attempt to reconcile personal experience with science. The Mind-Body Problem is similar to me in nature, but the question that I have is not fully formed yet.

It is a collection of ideas swirling around in my mind, but I am going to attempt to ask it anyway:

What if the personal experience of God is like the Mind -Body Problem or the Hard Problem of Consciousness?
What if man’s highest possible concept of an infinite God is finite and therefore can only expressed within the limitations of the human idea and ideal.

What do y’all think?

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I look at all that through memory. My personal view is that consciousness is just temporal manipulation of memory.

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@AtheistChMG The Common Basis of Memory and Consciousness: Understanding the Brain as a Write–Read Head Interacting With an Omnipresent Background Field - PMC
This is what I am reading about memory as it relates to consciousness. I haven’t finished it yet. Interesting stuff!

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CognosticAtheist

Tia_Thompson

1d

This question arises when mind and body are considered as distinct, based on the premise that the mind and the body are fundamentally different in nature.[3] (I did this as a Freshman at University.) ***Demonstrate a mind without a body. *** Absent any evidence your assertion is groundless. It’s philosophical chewing gum for the mind and nothing more.

FROM THE EXACT SAME ARTICLE YOU CITE ABOVE." (Previously Asked and responded to.)

“The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind (if there is such a thing) and its physical extension (if there is such a thing) has been raised as a criticism of dualism, and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body.”

We already know how life emerges from non-sentient matter. All evidence supports the claims of “Abiogenisis.” We have created the elements of life in a labratory from non-sentient matter. We have discovered the elements of life on asteroids in space. Now, a new study gives us an idea of what ancient proteins might have looked like, and how they could have been created from inorganic processes. The study could shed light on how early, inorganic proteins progressed until they stopped being inanimate and formed living cells — a process known as abiogenesis. (ANOTHER NEW STUDY) https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/in-the-news/a-new-study-hints-at-how-non-living-matter-coalesced-into-the-first-living-cells/

This might help as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDf1msDOp-c&list=RDCMUCprs0DXUS-refN1i8FkQkdg&index=21

And that is exactly how I am using it.

Why is performance (conscious movement i.e. attraction to light) accompanied by (conscious experience?) IT’s not. All levels of consciousness are NOT self aware. To be aware of experience is a development in consciousness. We share this development with Elephants, Dolphins, Parrots, Whales, chimpanzees, and half a dozen other animals on the planet.

Chalmers is wrong. The whole is “DIFFERENT” than the sum of its parts. Experience is contingent on the sum of the parts and their ability to experience. You do not see the same color spectrum as other animals on the planet. You do not have the same sense of smell as other animals on the planet. You do not share your consciousness with anything. Not even with a fellow human. It is only social conventions and utility that makes you think this way. (You admitted this with your own statement…
According to Chalmers experience is more than the sum of its parts. In other words, experience is irreducible.

Thomas Nagel is WRONG. Not all conscious beings are ‘self conscious.’ Does a tree know what it is like to be a tree? We know trees respond to their environment and are aware. Even though plants don’t have nervous systems, they can respond to stimuli. For example, when an aphid attacks a leaf, this sends an electrical signal that goes from leaf to leaf to tell the plant to start protecting itself. This fits your definition of Consciousness. This is not what Nagel is talking about and it is not what Chalmers is talkikng about and Nagel and Chalmers may not even be talking about the same thing.
WE ARE DISCUSSING THE EMERGENCE OF CONSCIOUNESS IN LIVING MATTER… Living matter becoming conscious. Consciousness evolves.

Poor analogy. (A clock analogy, really?) Clocks are not, NOT, naturally occuring. A perfect replica of a hurricane is not a hurricane. It is a replica of a hurricane. Hurricanes occur naturally. We know how hurricanes occur. A scientist creating a hurricane would be no different than a scientist creating a GMO. He is manipulating what is there, using the natural resources to create something resembling that which occurs naturally. A cloned sheep is a cloned sheep that was cloned by using natural processes that we understand and have learned how to manipulate.

Yep, We created a banana that is perfectly edible. It is a replica of a wild banana. We replicated the silver fox and changed a wild asocial animal into a loving pet-like creature. It’s entirely possible to alter replicas. (No two items could ever be exactly alike. A is A. A is not B. At most they can only replicate one another. All we are really talking about is the degree of replication.)

Two conscious beings with the exact same make up or experiences do not produce characteristics that are exactly the same. It does not happen. No Twin study on the planet would support this assertion. Two exactm beings is a “mind” problem and nto a ‘real’ problem. You are confounding hypothetical bullshit with that which is real. Show me two living things that are exactly alike.

Personal experience has nothing to do with a mind-body split? This was previously responded to. See the repeated post.

Negal: " It may be conscious in the generic sense of simply being a sentient creature"
(He calls this “creature consciousness.” You are using Negal WRONG “An animal, person
or other cognitive system may be regarded as conscious in a number of different senses.”

Chalmers is concerned with why should moving parts produce perception and sensation? And why should only brains (as far as we know) be responsible for consciousness. He is not talkiing about other forms of consciousness. Mountains of research have confirmed that plants have intelligence and even beyond that consciousness by many of the same measures as we do. Not only do they feel pain, but plants also perceive and interact with their environment in sophisticated ways.
Plant-Consciousness—The-Fascinating-Evidence-Showing-Plants-Have-Human-Level-Intelligence–Feelings–Pain-a

INORGANIC MATTER CAN BECOME LIVING MATTER - (Abiogenisis)
CONSCIOUSNESS EVOLVES IN LIVING MATTER (Life)
THE MIND / BODY SPLIT IS (Illusory) At no point has consciousness occured outside independent of life.

Chalmers: "According to panpsychism, consciousness may be a fundamental property of reality in the same way as space and time. ALL YOU ARE DOING IS PLAYING WITH DIFFERENT DEFINITIONS OF MIND. THERE ARE EQUIVOCATION ERRORS ALL OVER YOUR POST.

  1. You need to define what mind, you are talking aboout.
  2. You need to define what you specifically mean by consciousness.

You are jumping paradigms. Go back to your original assertion and stop citing researchers or philosopers. When you cite them, YOU HAVE TO STAY IN THEIR MAGICAL KINDGOM. You can not take their assertions and merge them with your assertions. The people you cite are not saying what you are saying and they are not in agreement with one another. They are talking about different things and calling them “consciousness.” Just as I am talking about 'consciousness and its emergence from inorganit material." The original question posed in your post.

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@Cognostic I can tell you put a lot of effort into this, so thank you for that.
However I do have few thoughts on what you wrote:

This is an exerpt containing the “question” you referred to along with it’s citation:
The mind–body problem is a debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body.[1][2] It is larger than, and goes beyond, just the question of how mind and body function chemically and physiologically (for example, the neural correlates of consciousness), as that question presupposes an interactionist account of mind–body relations.[3] This question arises when mind and body are considered as distinct, based on the premise that the mind and the body are fundamentally different in nature.

CITATION:

[3] Skirry, Justin. “Rene Descartes: The Mind-Body Distinction”. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. Archived from the original on 19 November 2016. Retrieved 20 December 2016. The real distinction of mind and body based on their completely diverse natures is the root of the famous mind-body problem: how can these two substances with completely different natures causally interact so as to give rise to a human being capable of having voluntary bodily motions and sensations?

This quote is related to emergent properties. This is the citation for this quote:
Kim, Jaegwan (1995). “Emergent properties”. In Honderich, Ted (ed.). Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 240. This was the citation provided.

Issam Sinjab, an Alumni University of Leicester & University of Sussex gives the definition of emergent properties as follows:

An emergent property is a property which a collection or complex system has, but which the individual members do not have. A failure to realize that a property is emergent, or supervenient, leads to the fallacy of division.
In chemistry, for example, the taste of saltiness is a property of salt, but that does not mean that it is also a property of sodium and chlorine, the two elements which make up salt. Thus, saltiness is an emergent or a supervenient property of salt. Claiming that chlorine must be salty because salt is salty would be an example of the fallacy of division.
In biology, for example, heart is made of heart cells, heart cells on their own don’t have the property of pumping blood. You will need the whole heart to be able to pump blood. Thus, the pumping property of the heart is an emergent or a supervenient property of the heart. Claiming that an individual heart cell can pump blood because the heart can would be an example of fallacy of division.

[quote=“Cognostic, post:19, topic:2876”]
We already know how life emerges from non-sentient matter.

Life and experience are two different, albeit related items, but thank you for the bit about abiogenesis. I’ll research that later. Looks interesting.

No, I am sorry you are not.

I’m not quite sure you understood what was written. The full of the thought (which is mostly that of peer-reviewed and cited article) is as follows:

Chalmers literally asserts that experience is irreducible.

“Chalmers argues that it is conceivable that the relevant behaviours associated with hunger, or any other feeling, could occur even in the absence of that feeling. This suggests that experience is irreducible to physical systems such as the brain.”

Here is where you will find that you agree.

Hard problem of consciousness - Wikipedia.

I think maybe we should all just study a bit more on this subject. (That is assuming that you even want to. I do, so I will)

After recognizing three strikes in the logic of what you are arguing so vehemently, I feel it is probably time to take a break and go play with my children and give greater attention to my husband’s dinner.

I’ll be back though. Thanks, Cog.

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And we have no reason to do this. Where is a mind without a body? You keep reverting to the same ole stuff and clearly there is nothing there but a hypothesis that begins with “What if.”

Demponstrate this without “PRESUPPOSES” anything.

Decart’s distinctions have been debunked for centuries. Descartes made the logical error of begging the question; that is, taking the answer for granted before beginning his argument. What is the first ‘I’ and what is the second ‘I.’ You have an equivocation fallacy?

Read literally I, this thing that is me; thinks. Therefore, this thing that is me, exists. No duality exists. I am me and I do the thinking. I am my brain state. My brain is me. Duality fades away.

And we have no good reason to do this.

YES. That is what I am saying.

There are no strikes in the logic. I am staying on track and you are combining different theoretical paradimes all over the place. Consciousness is an emergent property of Brain. I HAVE SAID AND ASSERTED NOTHING MORE. And all I have pointed to is that your various theories and hypothesis all break down at this point. To assert somehow consciousness or the mind is seperate for the body you will need to demonstrate consciousness without a physical body.

You must be specific and define what you mean by consciousness.
What you are calling a body.
What you are accepting as existence.

And stop blending various theories of consciousness together.