Materialism

You have plenty of reason to doubt. You just don't. The fact that you've given some possible alternative explanations that you don't even try to rule out means you have reason to doubt.And of course you aren't claiming that these experience occur in the absence of brain activity anyway.

Except for a few comments in that direction I haven't tried to dissociate the mind from the brain here, that is not what I've been arguing, as I've said more than once, and I don't think anybody knows enough about how mind and brain are related to make such a guess anyway. I believe the brain is necessary to our material life, the physical engine for mind, but that at death we will be temporarily separated from it and still conscious. I think it is intuitively obvious, not merely a "conventional" definition, that mind is nonmaterial and brain is material. That's just what they are by definition and common sense, and to say that just because their activities are simultaneous makes mind material in any sense at all is some kind of logical fallacy.I've made my case for this thread in my opinion and there's nothing more to say.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Common sense says that if the mind needs the brain for things like memory - and the others mentioned - then it really does need them. The functions wouldn't be magically restored by "taking the mind out of the body". Whatever that could mean in practice.Common sense, then, says that you can't take an actual mind out of the brain. The most you could do is copy a mind into something else that could perform the same functions. But that would be making a new copy, not taking the existing mind away.

The default position is that there is no such thing as mind, just as there is no such thing as soul. 'Mind' is just a convenient summary of one of the functions af a human brain that we don't yet know much about. In the meantime, superstition fills the knowledge vacuum, as it always has.The onus is therefore on those that believe that the mind is a seperate entity to the brain to show us - using more than just words - that it actually exists.

Nobody is taking the mind out of the body nor trying to say the mind doesn't need the brain. That is not my argument. I mention from time to time that I believe such a separation is possible and definitely will occur at death but that is based on the Bible and I'm not trying to prove it, at least not in my most recent posts. The only reason I say it is to provide a sort of context, it's not my argument. Otherwise I've affirmed the necessary connection between mind and brain.I'm objecting to the idea that mind IS somehow brain, is somehow material just because of the necessary connection, or that the brain is prior to mind or creates mind. It is always a part of mind's working, its learning, its doings of all kinds, but it isn't the initiator. You all make brain the primary thing and that's what I'm arguing with.Brain is the engine, brain can't think a thought it just does physical things, like my car does when I drive it. It doesn't know where to go, I drive it there.When I think, such as when I think what to write here, I am the one thinking, my brain isn't doing the thinking, I am or my mind is, my mind is initiating the thoughts that are conveyed here, not my brain. My brain is facilitating or empowering my thinking, and other parts of my body, eyes, hands etc., are engaged in conveying the thoughts to EvC, but the thoughts are the primary thing and the originating thing, and that is so obvious it shouldn't even have to be said.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

quote:

---

Nobody is taking the mind out of the body nor trying to say the mind doesn't need the brain. That is not my argument. I mention from time to time that I believe such a separation is possible and definitely will occur at death but that is based on the Bible and I'm not trying to prove it, at least not in my most recent posts.

---

Did you even notice that contradiction between not saying it and "mentioning" it ?

quote:

---

I'm objecting to the idea that mind IS somehow brain, is somehow material just because of the necessary connection, or that the brain is prior to mind or creates mind. It is always a part of mind's working, its learning, its doings of all kinds, but it isn't the initiator. You all make brain the primary thing and that's what I'm arguing with.

---

More accurately pretty much everyone else is pointing out that the mind can't be disentangled from the brain. That at the least the brain contains important components of the mind. And that's the view that you are attacking with your assertions that the mind is somehow the driver of the brain - which requires that they be considered separate to a degree that runs into serious problems with the evidence.

quote:

---

Brain is the engine, brain can't think a thought it just does physical things, like my car does when I drive it. It doesn't know where to go, I drive it there.

---

Well, there's a nice bald unsupported assertion for you, sheer assumption.

quote:

---

When I think, such as when I think what to write here, I am the one thinking, my brain isn't doing the thinking, I am or my mind is, my mind is initiating the thoughts that are conveyed here, not my brain.

---

Of course you're just assuming that the thinking isn't brain activity. You don't know and you have no way of knowing. Introspection doesn't reveal any boundary between mind and brain.

quote:

---

...but the thoughts are the primary thing and the originating thing, and that is so obvious it shouldn't even have to be said.

---

In fact the Libet experiments call even that into question.But setting that aside, all you have is an assumption that thoughts aren't products of the brain. Which isn't obvious at all.

It's a matter of logic. Mind is not material, by definition, by common sense, by intuitive recognition. Whatever its relationship to brain, this fact doesn't change, it is not material, brain is.

Brains are material. Neurons are material. Thoughts are electrical impulses in the brain. Without brains, neurons, electrical impulses etc. etc. there are no thoughts and there is no mind.The materialist stance is not that 'brain' and 'mind' are synonyms but rather that minds have a very material basis - Namely brains, electrical impulses, neurons and all the rest of it. And that without the material there is no mind.Do you think minds can exist independently of brains (or some other material equivalent)? If you do you are a dualist. If you don't you are a materialist.

quote:

---

It's a matter of logic.

---

Is it ? It seems to be more a matter of opinion, since you offer nothing more than assertion.

quote:

---

Mind is not material, by definition, by common sense, by intuitive recognition.

---

Please provide support for this assertion.

quote:

---

Whatever its relationship to brain, this fact doesn't change, it is not material, brain is.

---

According to your unsupported and uninformed opinion.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

You are asking questions I've answered umpteen times already on this thread. I believe the relation of mind to brain is that the mind is the driver and the brain the machine, and that this is a matter we know from observation and experience. Whether the mind is physically separate from the brain or not I don't really want to argue, but because the Bible makes it clear the soul is to be separated from the body at death of course I believe it is separate. But that's a different subject from how mind and brain relate while we're in the body which is where I've been trying to keep the focus, and one thing I've focused on is that experientially mind is the mover, the driver, the originator of thoughts and actions.The problem with the materialist view is that it ignores the amazing originality and individuality of mind. Imputing that quality to the firing of neurons takes some kind of reductionistic mentality that boggles MY mind. And in fact it ignores the mind's felt reality as opposed to the total lack of felt reality of the material side of things. We are aware of our own minds and we are aware of other people's minds far more directly than we are aware of anything about brains. I am addressing my thoughts from my mind to your mind. Mind is prior, brains are just machines. This isn't to deny that mind can't function without brain, it's just to suggest that there's something immensely bigger going on here than the materialist view can explain. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

quote:

---

I believe the relation of mind to brain is that the mind is the driver and the brain the machine, and that this is a matter we know from observation and experience.

---

I think that your repeated failure to offer any such observations or experience is a pretty clear indication that you know it isn't true. In reality we have no experiences of a separate mind "driving" the brain at all.

quote:

---

The problem with the materialist view is that it ignores the amazing originality and individuality of mind.

---

And that isn't true either. Adopting an explanation that you dislike or incredulously reject in no way devalues the thing being explained.

Just more flat-out assertions and assumptions and statements of your own belief. One can only wonder where you get your certainty.

No Faith, valid points that you can't answer.If we really knew something through observation and experience you could point to observations and experience that confirmed it. That you continually evade the issue is proof that you're being less than honest,And really it's obvious that your dislike of materialist explanations doesn't mean that the materialists are devaluing anything. In fact, if the materialist explanation is correct you are the one devaluing the brain by refusing to accept that it could be as marvellous as it is.Edited by PaulK, : Damn spelling "corrections"

I shouldn't have to "point to" something every human being knows by observation and experience; OR, in fact I've already pointed to it many times. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.