Not necessarily. If there is a great mathematician who needs a calculator to perform complex calculations and algorithms, I'd contend that the calculator is an extension of his brain, but not of his mind. The mind is the information behind the brain, but it is not an anatomic synonym.
Rather than the mind and brain being either completely separate or completely synonymous, the brain and the mind are both distinct components of the same thing, like a vector or a complex number.
@SangMarocain "is the Mind purely a function of the Brain ?"
Nobody knows for sure, but based on what we know about the brain's important functions and neuroscience, it seems that the mind is obviously only an affect that is given off by the brain. Just like how you cannot have sight without the eye, you cannot have mind without the brain.
The brain and mind are not the same thing, that doesn't mean that the mind can operate without the brain. I mean sight and eyes are not the same thing, but you still can't have sight without the eyes...
I really wanted to see that, but I guess that explains why I hadn't already seen it even though I subscribed to him and viewed all of his videos recently...
I never really understood what duelism was. Now I do. The supposed 'ghost in the machine'. Yes it still baffles me what exactly is our exsistance. We are (or at least a lot of people are) much more intelligent then what we used to be in centuries gone by. To believe in what most religions do is frankly, ridiculous. It is sobering to see a video like this being made. And I too have given up on the debate, (much like Richard Dawkins has) because by debating, you're giving these people 'credit'.
Since I feel that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son is revealed to me in my body, it is logical to me to believe that wherever the Bible is known everyone usually before the age of 30 does have spiritual experiences like me. However, not everyone is willing to sacrifice what is needed to become a true Christian. Rather than to obey the Bible's God many deny him, and one aspect of that denial is to lie that human thoughts come not from God or Satan in the body but from the body itself.
@mentalphysicalism ~ You deny Christ, but anyway, for to share my thoughts with other Christians here, I will answer you. In true Christianity matter does not exist. Only God exists, and everything is made out of God himself, even hell, but a creation is not completely equal with the Creator. The Father God - the infinite Whole, is greater than a creation - a limited Part of God. God rules bad humans by demons, since humans can not do anything by themselves except choose between good and evil.
@mentalphysicalism ~ The truth can only be one, so spiritually and semantically there is only one right definition of Christianity, one that excludes all the other so called true Christianities. With the inspiration from the Holy Spirit in human mind, on the basis of what is genuine in the Bible and after decades of thinking it is possible to understand what true Christianity is, but since humans can not completely communicate true Christianity, everyone must seek the complete truth on his own.
@mentalphysicalism ~ Since you deny that the Bible contains God's word, you are either a secret Antichrist who pretends to be a Christian and an atheist at the same time or you are so bold and irrational that you think that you can be some kind of a Christian of your own without any need of guidance from God's word. The Bible was put together not by God but by humans, so in KJV Bible there are some contradictions and false writings, but it is possible to distinguish what is genuine in the Bible.
@mentalphysicalism ~ To experience Jesus spiritually is not enough to understand who he is and what his mission in the world was. The Gospels of the Bible contain the eldest information about what Jesus did and said, and in John 6:63 Jesus says that his words are Spirit, so to call the words of Jesus in the Bible "an idol", like you call them, might in God's eyes be an unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and therefore this is my last reply to you.
If you take out someone's ear drums then they lose 100% of their function, the person will lose 100% of their hearing right after the action takes place. If someone takes out both of their eye balls they will lose 100% of their sight right after the action takes place. So why would someone believe that if they had their brain removed, they they wouldn't lose 100% of their mind? You can't hear without eardrums, you can't see without eyes, and you can't think without brains.
your simply reiterating what Hume points out.Nothing can be described without listing its properties hence if you remove the properties and ask what actually 'is it?' as you do you arrive at nothing, or incoherence. If something is non physical I, a physical entity, would not expect to be able to describe it. The human cognition can only comprehend what it can no of, we cannot know of this non physical entity therefore we will never comprehend its mechanisms. Plus the whole no free will issue.
arguing against the problem of what it is youd have the same problem desrcibing an apple as all you can give is groupings and properties. "see humes theory of forms"
Just because something is incoherent doesn't mean there is no meaning behind it. For instance Chinese sounds like incoherent gibberish to me, but I'm pretty sure for someone born in Bangkok he would disagree. This isn't an argument going against what your beliefs are over the topic of the mind/brain duality. I just find your logic a bit limit in it's capacity to understand, and therefore unable to give sound answers to this matter. Although I do agree a most duelist out there are crackpots.lol
@ProfMTH I was thinking of Beijing and wrote Bangkok, I guess that shows me. lol. But anyways you still sound like one of those angry pissed off atheist that base their worth on their IQ tests. Question? How small does it feel when you meet a guy two points higher than you? Lmfao
@ramik81 "...you still sound like one of those angry pissed off atheist that base their worth on their IQ tests."
Worse for you, you continue to sound like someone who can't show the limits of my logic that he asserted to exist. Get back to me if you ever have an actual argument and not just pointless babbling. Thanks. :-)
It would be of value for dualism adherents to read Daniel C. Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained". Even if one does not agree with his explaination of the mind, he does an excellent job killing dualism. Besides all that, Dennett is a cleaver auther, offering up enlightening illustrations and compelling explainations for the material. And it's funny as well.
Its too much knowlege out there for any one man to confess he knows anything. But I do confess to not understand the CREATOR is to never really understand the created. now start creating videos that actually have subtance we need to become more involved with building thoughts rather than destroying them.
@lroy45211 "now start creating videos that actually have subtance we need to become more involved with building thoughts rather than destroying them."
One thing I do agree on is dualism does complicate the matter. Really it boils down to one thing. The smallest thing in the world is the components of an atom and there happens to be BILLIONS of those racing through our brains and everything else around us NON-STOP. So if there is something smaller than that it would have to be labled a God Praticle Because its been going on since who Really knows When? and noone seems to Really know Why? Anyone who knows anything knows that he knows nothing!!!!
Well, I think you're missing the issue. The underlying issue is that the mind cannot, even in theory, be reduced to physical components. Dualists do not arbitrarily posit a "ghost" in the shell for no reason. The point is that there is a REAL explanatory gap between the brain and the mind.
Well, what do you mean by asking "why" ? If you claim that the production of experience as we know it from introspection,by a physical machine (the brain), does not deserve an explanation, then I disagree. To me the existence of experience is obvious, the thoughts I hear in my mind as I write this are not chemicals, they are thoughts!! The vision of the computer screen I see right now is obviously not 'a brain' just as it is not a 'table'. The ghost is still to be explained!
@hithere626 "Well, what do you mean by asking "why" ?"
Really? What I mean is I want to know why Vbfl920 has asserted that "the mind cannot, even in theory, be reduced to physical components." In other words, what is the basis for his claim?
I recommend Alvin Plantinga's Against Materialism talk. While he doesn't argue so much that dualism is true, he does argue that materialism can't logically be true.
@Prolific85 The problem with the modal argument is that Plantinga confuses a priori with a posteriori metaphysical necessity. His argument is refuted in /watch?v=7bIS3oRb6ag
As far as EAAN, I would recommend Feng Ye 's paper published this year as an effective refutation.
@nightvidcole Plantinga is one of the greatest Christian philosophers alive today. He has numerous awards for his work and I highly, highly doubt he really has confused a prior with a posteriori--something like that is so trivial and juvenile that it likely is not the case. Could you please specify where Plantinga confused the two? Second, I don't have time to watch the link so could you just give me summary or tell me at what minute Plantinga's argument is refuted?
@nightvidcole I watched your video--not sure what to make of it. The arguments were a little incoherent and don't seem to really address the argument. I think it's quite obvious that if two objects have different properties they are not the same thing. His reasoning by analogy, although interesting, really didn't refute dualism. He just said it basically depends on your perspective. Okay that may be true but that doesn't do anything to refute dualism.
excellent video! do you have any other video resources for criticisms of dualism? I'm teaching a class on behavior theory and I would love to show the students a few videos from the stance that you and I share.
I think that accounts where patients are able to accurately describe what is going on around them while they are clinically dead with a flat EEG (Pam Reynolds) also throws the whole notion that "the mind is what the brain does" into question. The society for psychical research has been publishing peer reviewed papers in scientific journals for decades FYI. So, there are things dualism explains better. The conventional model has to throw most of these things out to survive.
There are things that dualism explains better than the current model - for example, the phenomenon known as 'Terminal Lucidity'. In the most impressive cases, people with severe brain damage can't even remember the names and faces of their family members, nor can they hold a conversation. As they near death, they become 'lucid' and able to converse and remember clearly, despite the fact that the brain damage supposedly responsible for their affliction is still very much present.
ProfMTH, my problem is that to me is very difficult to know even what the matter is. What is the matter at the very fundamental level? Can you give an sufficient answer? Because all the explanation I have listen about didn't convince me at all. In a certain sense it is possible that the matter, beyond the subatomic level, is only spirit (non material substance), or maybe our reality is both, matter and soul. (sorry for my english)
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION is " what it is ". How does it effect our physical reality? Where your directing your attention provides the pool of options to choose from. Also, PERCEPTION is a componemt as well ( read biology of belief ). Example of how this non physical thing effects the physical world: If you percieve percive someone as a threat, your body releases adrenaline providing the fight or flight response, causing congruent thoughts and actions as well. If you percieve him as friend...
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION and PERCEPTION are non physical, indivisible, simple causing factors in your feelings, thoughts and actions. Also PERCEPTION causes physiological changes in your very genome. ( This is studied in EPIGINETICS ) I can show how CONCIOUS PERCEPTION affects the physical brain and our very physiology. DETERMINISM is propogated mainly for pharmacuticle companies who would otherwise hold the only solution for our depression, disease and physiological shortcomings. BULL SHI
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION and PERCEPTION is your answer. And their is indeed scientific proof and common sense reasoning to back it up that they have an effect on our physical reality. The world is not flat, determinism is not acurate and I am not going to put my responsibility on a bull shit idea.
Reductionistic materialism is quite offensive. It's not life, it's biology. It's not biology, it's organic chemistry. It's not organic chemistry, it's physics..........There is no mind, only the brain......etc.
See how soulless this enterprise is becoming? Lawrence Krauss made a similarly offensive remark in his "A Universe from nothing" talk. Make no mistake, many scientist (materialist) are quite hostile to philosophy.
Are all non-duelists still on land line dial up service? Not only is there a ghost tethered to your brain, it is in the service of demented chicken-pig psychopaths that want to keep their secret of spirit homo orgy cannibalism that is eating your ability to be anything other than a denial for dollars and position psychopath. Pardon the bluntness.
You will absolutely not understand something you try not to. You seem to have a pretty objective mind which I applaud you, for not being ignorant and simply stating facts...BUT I think you failed to realize that this guy is in a mind state that he is not the one who made this up, merely trying to figure it out. You can't find a reason for dualism if you try and understand it based on principals that would have you believe otherwise in the first place. Most anatomical structures don't make sense.
"Incoherent" is too strong a word to use here. I usually reverse engineer this type of discussion to form opinions. I had a friend who once read 3 digit numbers out my head - three times in a row! And with no coaching or coaxing on his part. The odds of this happening by chance approach one in a billion. You ask "By what mechanism can an immaterial substance (mind) interact with the brain?" Ask yourself "by what mechanism can a brain unattached to mine can read numbers out of my head".
@ProfMTH The term "dualism" is what truly throws the proverbial wrench in most people's spokes. There is no seperation of mind or brain. The spirit is energy. Which the objective mind should be able to comprehend ... think about how energy is stored in batterys.
@ProfMTH: The notion that we should be able to observe the mind or reduce the mind to a substance is grounded in materialism. What if mind isn't a 'substance' at all? What if it simply IS?
@hilliuno Software is written/encoded onto hardware and each "emerges" (appears as a distint separate entity) as large collection(s) of bits get changed by the hardware into new bits or signals to other hardware.
To say that a non-physical 'thing' is incoherent because we cannot talk about it is limiting all possible knowledge to our limited sense experience. To us the idea may be unattainable but this does not discredit it
Well you seem to so badly look for a name or some evidence for something that doesn't exsist in the sense that you cannot grab it in your hands and examine it. Like trying to eplain to some blind person what green color is. It's something he could just not perceive. If science and physical measuring instruments cannot measure something beyond physical matter, then there will never be an actual proof for its exsistence and thus noone will give it a name.
You’re discounting “non-physical” because it cannot be related to physical descriptions? This, to me, seems to be stinking of circular logic. [For the dualist, being that “mind” is non-physical, it has no “thingness” related to it. “Non-physical” could then be paralleled to nothingness.
@SuperBroman11 "You’re discounting “non-physical” because it cannot be related to physical descriptions?"
No. In fact, "non-physical" descriptions--and I'm using 'description' merely for the sake of convenience--are almost always negatively related to physical ones, e.g., "immaterial", "non-spatial".
"So is a non-physical view of mind incoherent simply because it is non-physical?"
No. It's incoherent because no one can say what it is.
@ProfMTH Okay, so you asked legodesi, “what exactly is a non-physical substance?” Taking this into consideration, regarding a major aspect of 'mind' (consciousness), I feel it is appropriate to ask ProfMTH what exactly it means for something to be a “neural correlate of consciousness?” I would like an intelligible answer as what this is.
@SuperBroman11 Well, I had to look it up, but here goes. The neural correlates of consciousness constitute the smallest set of neural events and structures sufficient for a given conscious percept or explicit memory. This case involves synchronized action potentials in neocortical pyramidal neurons. In your opinion, does positing the existence of some "non-physical", ghosty mind stuff explain it better, more thoroughly, even coherently?
@ProfMTH No, in fact, "non-physical" does not explain "mind" better. However, this is not the issue for me. The issue is there is no "physical" theory of mind that comes even close to explaining mind. Thus, discounting theories of mind based on some prospect that everything can be reduced to physical structure is ignorant. I mean, I get action potentials, but come on, does this explain anything? Finally, to say dualism isn't useful indicates to me you haven't considered ethical theories.
This state of nothingness, some would argue, is “simple” and “nondivisible.”If one fails to describe what nothingness, non-physical, is, this should be of no surprise being that by definition non-physical would be incapable of having physical ascribed to it). So is a non-physical view of mind incoherent simply because it is non-physical?
In the past week, I learned much on the brain, consciousness, and subconscious .. in my current conclusion, I believe there are 2 possibilities. either everything exists within the brain and everything is merely an illusion OR that there is a god consciousness or subconscious that is beyond our conscious mind (the brain).
So do you not believe that we have a subconscious mind? Do you believe that it is our conscious mind (brain) that processes all of our body functions? Also, do you think the things (environments, people, scenarios) you see in your dream are created by your conscious mind? But how can you create them if you were not even conscious of creating them? Therefore, how can you say there isn't a mind beyond your brain?
@ProfMTH yes, that's a possibility. however, my recent study shows that it's highly possible for the subconscious mind to exist without the brain. that it is actually beyond our brain. look into precognitive dreaming and the subconscious mind connecting people from all over the world. it seems as if the subconscious mind is not individually based - not inside our brain.
@ProfMTH I think there's a lot of study already on how subconscious mind is connected between people. Think of the incident where many times when one animal learns something - all the animals in another island would also learn it instantly without being in contact or seeing the first animal doing it. It seems that subconscious mind is beyond our conscious control. And to be honest I don't know where it exists.
Disagree with the video for the most part. Experimenting with large amounts of psychedelics you can completely separate the body and mind as long as you understand whats happening when you go into it. And I mean COMPLETELY separate them where you can distinctly examine them separately. It's hard to explain what the mind is and where it exists. I don't expect anyone to take my word for it. I encourage people to research dualism and higher dimensions, go into a trip and experience it for yourself.
SECOND ANSWER - Again equivalent really of asking someone 500 years back to explain a virus- we lack the advancement, don't have the equipment to determine that. I guess you could delve into the Christian perspective of the "soul" but it's slightly too bias for me. The only thing we know is that it is a non physical thing. That doesn't mean we should act like the logical positivists and deny all existence- that is obstruction of learning. We look for the answer. Until we find it.
@babycuddle2 "we lack the advancement, don't have the equipment to determine that"
It's not as if the "Is there something non-physical in the brain?" question is a new one. We've been at this for a VERY long time. Nevertheless, as Professor Paul Thagard of the University of Waterloo recently put it in Psychology Today (and I believe he was being generous in his assessment), "[T]here is scant evidence for the view that minds are anything more than brains."
@ProfMTH The duration that the scientific world spends on a subject is inconsequential to whether the answer exists or does not exist WHETHER YOU PUT IT IN CAPITALS OR NOT. Secondly putting in a quote that a Professor disagrees with me, is all well and good, but can you put in the actual evidence so I can understand why thank you. Presumably he has great knowledge over the subject that no scientist in the future will ever be able to overcome.
I don't know, the basis of your argument seems to be (at least to me) saying that because we don't understand dualism it doesn't exist? I mean you said that we don't know how the two could interact- doesn't mean they can't. You said we don't understand what a non-physical being is, fair enough, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
If I told someone 500 years ago that something small (a virus) and invisible (to them) was making them ill- they could have used the same argument.
@babycuddle2 "I don't know, the basis of your argument seems to be (at least to me) saying that because we don't understand dualism it doesn't exist?"
Incorrect.
In a nutshell, dualism explains nothing that cannot already be sufficiently explained without reference to it. It offers no information that helps us to understand anything about how the brain works. Worse yet, not only does it fail to answer any questions, but it raises a host of unanswerable questions.
Dualism answers the question to why we bother thinking about philosophical questions in the first place. No other animal (I assume) does, so why us?
It explains the reason for excess (mostly unnecessary) thought, just to get a snack " will it make me fat, do I feel like salty or sweet". Surely if we were just matter the process would be " hunger- get snack".
Philosophy is suppose to raise up questions, it's not neat like science "the more I know, the less I understand"
@babycuddle2 "Dualism answers the question to why we bother thinking about philosophical questions in the first place. No other animal (I assume) does, so why us?"
So what's the answer? What does dualism tell us about this that cannot otherwise be explained sufficiently without dualism?
"It explains the reason for excess (mostly unnecessary) thought...."
@ProfMTH If we were merely materialistic beings, we would just be a process of machinery. Instead we are as Jean Paul Sartre said "beings for themselves" we can separate ourselves from situations and make observations which lead to our decision making, we can therefore go through a deeper analysis about factors that would otherwise be inconsequential to a plant/ animal. Their functions go towards supporting their physical substance (with food) rather than their mental ones (with thought)
@ProfMTH The similarity with humans and animals is of an extent that they should have the capability our level of advancement. Dolphin brains are bigger than ours. A computer generates 100,000,000 bits a second. Yet neither (although more physically advanced than us) contemplate decisions to that self- awareness level that humans do. So one can infer there is a non physical element. I have to answer the next question below- not enough space SEE SECOND ANSWER BELOW!!!!
@babycuddle2 "Dolphin brains are bigger than ours."
But not nearly as complex.
"one can infer there is a non physical element"
Again, I don't see why. It seems your only reason is that other animals with brains can't do as many or as complex stuff as we can. That hardly seems reason to conclude that we have some sort of ghost running the mental show behind the scenes in our brain.
@ProfMTH Anyone who claims that their scientific knowledge is complete and therefore accounts for all the "unknown" factors about our existence, is a fool. There is absolutely no wrong in accepting that your understanding of something is limited by lack of resources. When a theory is not meeting standard you evaluate it, see if there are any theories that can fit better. - I think you disregard dualism too fast because of the religious connotations that surround it, do you disagree?
@babycuddle2 I disregard it for the reasons set forth in the video and the videos to which I linked. Among those reasons is that I cannot get a coherent answer from any of its advocates as to what we're supposed to be looking for.
I agree with your first point, but the second point (what IS it) is like asking "what *is* energy? what's it made of?"
I've had this discussion with my physics teacher in school, and it lead to a religious discussion (or sort of a debate), but we got no plausible answer from "what is energy?" apart from "energy is matter"
Just wait until you have an OBE where certain things of the real physical world you see in that OBE that you could not of possibly know before the OBE, but find out and observe after you come back from the OBE, oh wait you'll never have one of those. You have already closed down the channels and aligned your belief against it. I know a world you may never discover!
@VarvaraBell Why would we wait until we have one ourselves? We could just set up an experiment where someone who supposedly has OBEs gets to know something from reality that he/she couldn't know. Then you proved that there's something more to our minds.
Such and easy experiment, yet we never heard of anyone doing it and succeeding. Maybe they didn't like the results?
QualiaSoup's "excellent" video was based largely on a false understanding of the philosophical term substance. A substance in ontology is something that is non-reducible and holds reducible properties. Also, dualism provides a solution to the hard problem of consciousness, so you can't say it has no explanatory power.
BTW I'm not a substance dualist, I'm a panpsychist and a property dualist.
I would like clarification, please. I've watched this video multiple times (including the ones concerning "What IS God?" and I'm confused as to what you're looking for. If you don't mind, could you please give an example of what you're looking for with a question like, 'What is a human?' Just so that I may understand what you're trying to discern. Thank you. (I'm not trying to refute anything, it's kinda like looking for a formula in a math book so that I can apply the formula to get a solution)
@sumrblizrd "I'm not trying to refute anything...."
It would be fine if you were. ;-) With a human being, one can coherently speak in terms of the physical or material. I've yet to see anyone coherently speak in terms of nonphysical or nonmaterial. When conversation turns to things such as "spirit", what one starts to hear are negations, e.g., it's not physical, it's not material, it's not temporal, it's not visible. Well, that's fine. But what *is* it?
What believers in this stuff fail to realize is that despite its "immateriality" the soul, if it exists, seems weirdly bound by all sorts of material forces. Gravity, for one, since souls don't go spinning off the earth. Presumably inertia and electromagnetic forces -- because otherwise what keeps the soul stuck inside our heads when we walk around (because despite being "immaterial" our souls have to be in our heads because we can lose most of the rest of our bodies and not be dead).
(cont'd) -- And, of course, for those who believe we are "ensouled" at conception, what does that say about the "size" of the immaterial soul? That it's (at most) the size of a fertilized egg, though immaterial -- and then migrates to the head area as the fetus develops?
It all just gets goofier and goofier the more you try to think about it as something real.
Each Consciousness likes and to be in peace full, love full, bliss full, immortal, etc, etc..., Mind-Body medicine evidence is that if only when have the above defined consciousness and feelings will live healthy and recover from diseases quicker than otherwise. This means consciousness and body is made for each other. Matter has tendencies to go to stable state then why consciousness if materialistic not following the same rule to stay in most stable. Rejection without proof is unscientific.
Dualism has problems, but so does materialism. Materialism also cannot explain the subjectivity and intentionality of consciousness. McGinn and Chalmers both argue that these aspects of consciousness are, in principle, impossible to explain. The reason some people are drawn to it is because consciousness has some characteristics that seem impossible in principle to explain using any third person methodology like science, math, logic, or metaphor. I'm an atheist towards the mind
There may not be any physical difference, still there is difference. The question you have asked me, for that answer is "NO", Interpretation of physical things depends on abstractions used in reaching conclusion. For example same rose flower is perceived differently by chemist and poet, but is it same, however abstraction created by chemist and poet are different, hence its interpretation is different. My point is not the differences in abstraction, but why such differences exist in abstractions
It is a laughable presentation.... I enjoyed this but not convinced ... Here I present one contradiction in your presentation ... If there is no dualism than there should not be disagreement between "you" and "me". But I do not agree with you and vice versa. As both your physical body and mine both are made up of same matter than there should not be any differences. The differences shows that "You" and "I" are different.
@bharadrm "As both your physical body and mine both are made up of same matter than there should not be any differences."
Your brain and my brain are similar but by no means identical, so we shouldn't expect that "there should not be disagreement between "you" and "me"" "[i]f there is no dualism."
@bharadrm I don't follow your assertion that mind-brain dualism is proven by disagreement between two people or even in one person's mind.
It makes just as much sense to reverse your claim:
"I assert that dualism can't be true because people disagree. If there were mind-brain dualism, there would be no disagreements because all our minds would be one matter, with no differences."
Because we are talking about imaginary things, like god or the "mind", it's easy to give it any attribute you like.
At the very least it would take you years to get from point A to point B thinking in a materialistic way. It's terribly inefficient and even non-functional. Thoughts are necessarily contentful. The mind doesn't think in materialistic terms.
I've heard some people talk about the brain like a computer and the mind as a program that is running on that computer. Is that mind body duality or was that an old psychology hypothesis?
About the "it doesn't tell you what it is" don't all newly discovered phenomena or items start out without observing it's properties and then giving it a name?
Agree, we are prepared to BELIEVE in the so called etheric part of any machine or equipment that operates in base of instructions, but still we are reluctant to believe that Body-Mind dualism could or even be more complex.
Dreams, thoughts and ideas could be falsified and I can lie to a psycologist, we can not see a though or an idea unless it is manifested in physical form. Nobody here can tell me that I am thinking and imagining.
Hmm... I'd disagree with the "incoherent" part. I don't think that not being able to identify something in terms of what we already know is evidence against it. I think coherent attributes should be enough. If, for instance, you could demonstrate that the brain was receiving information that could not have originated via normal means, that would be evidence for some other source of information, though we really couldn't make any other claims about it.
Forget whether consciousness/the soul is separate from the brain. That is a different issue from whether the mind is separate from the brain. In regards to the latter, the mind IS separate from the brain because you can read the former (the brain), but not the latter (the mind). Neuroscience says a lot about the neurotransmitters which allow emotions to manifest themselves. But, it does not tell us about the thoughts bringing those emotions. Only the thinker can do that if he/she decides to.
What is matter...is that, too, incoherent?...of course not, matter is "there" right? And we find it there, hmm, because we are looking...seems to me this logic is fool proof...prof's argument is most coherent...not!
@SuperBroman11 It would be useful if you wrote something coherent. Your extreme overtrying (yet totally failing) at sarcasm has transformed your comment into gibberish.
@ProfMTH Make a coherent argument about what matter actually is. Differentiate this understanding of matter with what is considered to "mind," and show "mind" is simply matter and not vice versa. Of course these may all be explained by the physical; I don't doubt that. I'm not arguing for dualism; I just want you to explain what "physical" is and what makes it that way. In your spare time, explain the placebo effect, and tell me how a paramecium, a single-celled organism, can learn new things.
A qucik yquestion. Are you are a materialist,? if yes are you also a determinist ?, Determinisn if true, would result in all arguments, ( for metaphysics, materialism,etc ) being 'detrmined' by our brains, and bodys, interacting with our environemnt. We would have now way of knowing that any of the arguments are true, since our belief as to the truth or otherweise would be detrmined. So are you a materialist, ? if yes are you a determinsit ? If not, how do you square the two beliefs ?
Dualism is mostly a way to deal with the difficulty of imagining our own consciousness arises only from mechanistic events in the brain. I think its useful as a possible motivation to seek unknown properties of matter when studying the brain. We can acknowledge that our own experience "suggests" a mechanism we currently don't understand.
@LuciousVBogeymanProd Agreed ! Also a 'hard determism' that seems to spring from matgerialistic philosopy, is self refuting ! see my question above to the Prof ! It is not as simple as just picking holes in Duelism, we also have to explore the implications of the alternatives.
Humans are ignorant thus they do not wish to accept the brain as the center of thought. It is the human fear of death being manifested with a fictional thing.
Dualism is growing because of the problem of qualia. The existence of qualia, has no explanatory power... but is certainly exists. This is the problem presented by Searle, Nagel, Mcginn, and others. The "What is it likeness" and "intentionality" present serious problems for any Naturalistic/Materialistic/Physicalist view of the world. Yes, dualism is inchoherent.... but materialism is also at its limits in the face of qualia and these new forms of dualism (Cartesian Dualism=straw man).
im really interested in this, and am a psychology student. I really want to see if there's a way of finding that relationship between mental and brain events.
But my real question is, you believe more in a Monist perspective then?
Could you please, possibly in a private message, explain to me the premise of mind-body dualism? I realize beliefs such as Chan Buddhism are non-dualistic, but I'm having trouble identifying what dualism actually is. The wiki article is too focused on research and not enough on example, and I appreciate being enlightened by someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Thank you!
@ProfMTH Exactly, that is where the secret lies, then of course you have the mind, which is infinetly complex. In order for an animal to survive, it has to feel it's environment, or else it's just a machine and we all know that machines don't feel.
@1:33,
Not necessarily. If there is a great mathematician who needs a calculator to perform complex calculations and algorithms, I'd contend that the calculator is an extension of his brain, but not of his mind. The mind is the information behind the brain, but it is not an anatomic synonym.
Rather than the mind and brain being either completely separate or completely synonymous, the brain and the mind are both distinct components of the same thing, like a vector or a complex number.
MegaAstrodude 1 week ago
Excellent!
poeticjustice2000 3 weeks ago
@poeticjustice2000 Thanks!
ProfMTH 3 weeks ago
@SangMarocain "is the Mind purely a function of the Brain ?"
Nobody knows for sure, but based on what we know about the brain's important functions and neuroscience, it seems that the mind is obviously only an affect that is given off by the brain. Just like how you cannot have sight without the eye, you cannot have mind without the brain.
theBartone9119 1 month ago
The brain and mind are not the same thing, that doesn't mean that the mind can operate without the brain. I mean sight and eyes are not the same thing, but you still can't have sight without the eyes...
theBartone9119 1 month ago
@theBartone9119 What is your point?
ProfMTH 1 month ago
This video is a favorite on Massachusetts
nickolascook718 1 month ago
@nickolascook718 A favorite on Massachusetts?
ProfMTH 1 month ago
Aw man! QualiaSoup's video was made private. :(
I really wanted to see that, but I guess that explains why I hadn't already seen it even though I subscribed to him and viewed all of his videos recently...
palerider1775 1 month ago
@palerider1775 search for 'Substance dualism *mirror*'
zacthebold 1 month ago
@zacthebold Thanks!
palerider1775 1 month ago
"Strict" physicalism presents its' own problem of how chemical reactions and electrical
activity in the brain are thoughts. Physicalists think that matter generates mind and creationist
theists think that a mind generated matter. Both are wrong as mind and matter are both
different perceptions of the same fundamental world. Consciousness of our inner self is mind and
consciousness of our outer sensory perceptions is called physical. M&M don't interact as they
are one.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
Your vid is popular on Paris
jarrettpeter37 1 month ago
I never really understood what duelism was. Now I do. The supposed 'ghost in the machine'. Yes it still baffles me what exactly is our exsistance. We are (or at least a lot of people are) much more intelligent then what we used to be in centuries gone by. To believe in what most religions do is frankly, ridiculous. It is sobering to see a video like this being made. And I too have given up on the debate, (much like Richard Dawkins has) because by debating, you're giving these people 'credit'.
latenightlogic 1 month ago
Since I feel that the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son is revealed to me in my body, it is logical to me to believe that wherever the Bible is known everyone usually before the age of 30 does have spiritual experiences like me. However, not everyone is willing to sacrifice what is needed to become a true Christian. Rather than to obey the Bible's God many deny him, and one aspect of that denial is to lie that human thoughts come not from God or Satan in the body but from the body itself.
mikilavush 2 months ago
@mikilavush Strict physicalists think that mind is generated by matter(brain) and
theistic creationists think that a mind(god) generated matter. They are both wrong
because mind and matter are different perceptions of the same activity. The basis of
mind and matter are inseperable which means that they do not interact with each other
because they are one event analogous to the one event of a fireworks explosion being
perceived as visual and auditory.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
@mentalphysicalism ~ You deny Christ, but anyway, for to share my thoughts with other Christians here, I will answer you. In true Christianity matter does not exist. Only God exists, and everything is made out of God himself, even hell, but a creation is not completely equal with the Creator. The Father God - the infinite Whole, is greater than a creation - a limited Part of God. God rules bad humans by demons, since humans can not do anything by themselves except choose between good and evil.
mikilavush 1 month ago
@mikilavush I am not familiar with your particular true Christianity as there
are many different true Christianities.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
@mentalphysicalism ~ The truth can only be one, so spiritually and semantically there is only one right definition of Christianity, one that excludes all the other so called true Christianities. With the inspiration from the Holy Spirit in human mind, on the basis of what is genuine in the Bible and after decades of thinking it is possible to understand what true Christianity is, but since humans can not completely communicate true Christianity, everyone must seek the complete truth on his own.
mikilavush 1 month ago
@mikilavush I am a true Christian because I know Jesus whereas nearly all
Christians just believe in Jesus. I am an atheist because I don't worship idols
like nearly all Christians do. The bible is the most heinous idol because unlike
a figurine people don't recognize their idolatry. Early Christians were persecuted
by Rome for being atheists as atheists were then people who did not believe in the
established religion. Nothing has changed.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
@mentalphysicalism ~ Since you deny that the Bible contains God's word, you are either a secret Antichrist who pretends to be a Christian and an atheist at the same time or you are so bold and irrational that you think that you can be some kind of a Christian of your own without any need of guidance from God's word. The Bible was put together not by God but by humans, so in KJV Bible there are some contradictions and false writings, but it is possible to distinguish what is genuine in the Bible.
mikilavush 1 month ago
@mikilavush Your Christianity is so intent on idolatry that it has
established strong barriers against knowing God as you use the
AntiChrist as an inpenetrable barrier to recognizing idolatry of
words and ideology. You concretize too many words and miss
the meaning. John 16:25
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
@mikilavush Jesus was crucified for undermining the authority of
church leaders. His movement became popular to the extent that
they have become the authority. You have taken on the ideology
of authority rather than the individual spirituality of Jesus. Jesus was
crucified for knowing himself to be god and when his teaching became
the establishment, he was made a god but only he was to known that
he was God so that the religious establishment can maintain their
special position.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
@mentalphysicalism ~ To experience Jesus spiritually is not enough to understand who he is and what his mission in the world was. The Gospels of the Bible contain the eldest information about what Jesus did and said, and in John 6:63 Jesus says that his words are Spirit, so to call the words of Jesus in the Bible "an idol", like you call them, might in God's eyes be an unforgivable blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and therefore this is my last reply to you.
mikilavush 1 month ago
If you take out someone's ear drums then they lose 100% of their function, the person will lose 100% of their hearing right after the action takes place. If someone takes out both of their eye balls they will lose 100% of their sight right after the action takes place. So why would someone believe that if they had their brain removed, they they wouldn't lose 100% of their mind? You can't hear without eardrums, you can't see without eyes, and you can't think without brains.
theBartone9119 2 months ago
your simply reiterating what Hume points out.Nothing can be described without listing its properties hence if you remove the properties and ask what actually 'is it?' as you do you arrive at nothing, or incoherence. If something is non physical I, a physical entity, would not expect to be able to describe it. The human cognition can only comprehend what it can no of, we cannot know of this non physical entity therefore we will never comprehend its mechanisms. Plus the whole no free will issue.
ythehelluwatchin 2 months ago
QualiaSoup made his Substance Dualism video private... great. Sorta goes against the spirit of the internet.
l337z0r 2 months ago
@l337z0r He told me that he is unhappy with it and intends to upload an improved version, though that was some time ago.
HasimirFenring1106 2 months ago
arguing against the problem of what it is youd have the same problem desrcibing an apple as all you can give is groupings and properties. "see humes theory of forms"
breadforsin 3 months ago
is the Mind purely a function of the Brain ?
SangMarocain 3 months ago
@SangMarocain The difference between the mind and the brain is perception. Our
consciousness of our inner self is called mind and our consciousness of our outer
sensory is called matter. Mind and brain are one inseperable event that is perceived
in different ways. Saying that mind or brain is a function of the other creates the problem
of how they can interact.
mentalphysicalism 1 month ago
Comment removed
theBartone9119 1 month ago
waves of potential in superposition are non-physical
TDP788 3 months ago
Just because something is incoherent doesn't mean there is no meaning behind it. For instance Chinese sounds like incoherent gibberish to me, but I'm pretty sure for someone born in Bangkok he would disagree. This isn't an argument going against what your beliefs are over the topic of the mind/brain duality. I just find your logic a bit limit in it's capacity to understand, and therefore unable to give sound answers to this matter. Although I do agree a most duelist out there are crackpots.lol
ramik81 3 months ago
@ramik81 "Just because something is incoherent doesn't mean there is no meaning behind it. "
You might want to look up the meaning of 'incoherent'.
"Chinese sounds like incoherent gibberish to me, but I'm pretty sure for someone born in Bangkok he would disagree."
Is it your understanding that Bangkok is in China?
"I just find your logic a bit limit...."
You've yet to show any of its purported limits.
ProfMTH 3 months ago
@ProfMTH I was thinking of Beijing and wrote Bangkok, I guess that shows me. lol. But anyways you still sound like one of those angry pissed off atheist that base their worth on their IQ tests. Question? How small does it feel when you meet a guy two points higher than you? Lmfao
ramik81 3 months ago
@ramik81 "...you still sound like one of those angry pissed off atheist that base their worth on their IQ tests."
Worse for you, you continue to sound like someone who can't show the limits of my logic that he asserted to exist. Get back to me if you ever have an actual argument and not just pointless babbling. Thanks. :-)
ProfMTH 3 months ago
@ramik81 Bangkok, Thailand i believe.
Yahweigh 1 month ago
Is the concept of a computer made out of happiness incoherent? Then so is mind-body dualism.
Staunts 1 month ago
It would be of value for dualism adherents to read Daniel C. Dennett's book "Consciousness Explained". Even if one does not agree with his explaination of the mind, he does an excellent job killing dualism. Besides all that, Dennett is a cleaver auther, offering up enlightening illustrations and compelling explainations for the material. And it's funny as well.
rumidude 4 months ago
@rumidude: What kinds of arguments do you think kill dualism? Thus far I have seen nothing that makes dualism untenable.
AnduinX 3 months ago
Its too much knowlege out there for any one man to confess he knows anything. But I do confess to not understand the CREATOR is to never really understand the created. now start creating videos that actually have subtance we need to become more involved with building thoughts rather than destroying them.
lroy45211 4 months ago
@lroy45211 "now start creating videos that actually have subtance we need to become more involved with building thoughts rather than destroying them."
Go fuck yourself.
ProfMTH 4 months ago
@lroy45211 Building thoughts? Of course.
This is what ProfMTH is doing. Besides, you're presupposing a creator and a creation instead of simply a universe.
MagnusThiHan 3 months ago
One thing I do agree on is dualism does complicate the matter. Really it boils down to one thing. The smallest thing in the world is the components of an atom and there happens to be BILLIONS of those racing through our brains and everything else around us NON-STOP. So if there is something smaller than that it would have to be labled a God Praticle Because its been going on since who Really knows When? and noone seems to Really know Why? Anyone who knows anything knows that he knows nothing!!!!
lroy45211 4 months ago
Mind and body aren't causally related. We only know that they have a correlation.
shinosai 4 months ago
Well, I think you're missing the issue. The underlying issue is that the mind cannot, even in theory, be reduced to physical components. Dualists do not arbitrarily posit a "ghost" in the shell for no reason. The point is that there is a REAL explanatory gap between the brain and the mind.
vbfl920 5 months ago
@vbfl920 "The underlying issue is that the mind cannot, even in theory, be reduced to physical components."
Why?
ProfMTH 5 months ago
@ProfMTH
Well, what do you mean by asking "why" ? If you claim that the production of experience as we know it from introspection,by a physical machine (the brain), does not deserve an explanation, then I disagree. To me the existence of experience is obvious, the thoughts I hear in my mind as I write this are not chemicals, they are thoughts!! The vision of the computer screen I see right now is obviously not 'a brain' just as it is not a 'table'. The ghost is still to be explained!
hithere626 5 months ago
@hithere626 "Well, what do you mean by asking "why" ?"
Really? What I mean is I want to know why Vbfl920 has asserted that "the mind cannot, even in theory, be reduced to physical components." In other words, what is the basis for his claim?
ProfMTH 4 months ago
I recommend Alvin Plantinga's Against Materialism talk. While he doesn't argue so much that dualism is true, he does argue that materialism can't logically be true.
Prolific85 5 months ago
@Prolific85 The problem with the modal argument is that Plantinga confuses a priori with a posteriori metaphysical necessity. His argument is refuted in /watch?v=7bIS3oRb6ag
As far as EAAN, I would recommend Feng Ye 's paper published this year as an effective refutation.
nightvidcole 4 months ago
@nightvidcole Plantinga is one of the greatest Christian philosophers alive today. He has numerous awards for his work and I highly, highly doubt he really has confused a prior with a posteriori--something like that is so trivial and juvenile that it likely is not the case. Could you please specify where Plantinga confused the two? Second, I don't have time to watch the link so could you just give me summary or tell me at what minute Plantinga's argument is refuted?
Prolific85 4 months ago
@nightvidcole I watched your video--not sure what to make of it. The arguments were a little incoherent and don't seem to really address the argument. I think it's quite obvious that if two objects have different properties they are not the same thing. His reasoning by analogy, although interesting, really didn't refute dualism. He just said it basically depends on your perspective. Okay that may be true but that doesn't do anything to refute dualism.
Prolific85 4 months ago
yeah you're right the argument has been settled.
cunnidvd 6 months ago
neither coherent nor compelling
cunnidvd 6 months ago
excellent video! do you have any other video resources for criticisms of dualism? I'm teaching a class on behavior theory and I would love to show the students a few videos from the stance that you and I share.
deric0909 6 months ago
@deric0909 Thanks. There are links in the description box.
ProfMTH 6 months ago
I think that accounts where patients are able to accurately describe what is going on around them while they are clinically dead with a flat EEG (Pam Reynolds) also throws the whole notion that "the mind is what the brain does" into question. The society for psychical research has been publishing peer reviewed papers in scientific journals for decades FYI. So, there are things dualism explains better. The conventional model has to throw most of these things out to survive.
AnduinX 6 months ago
There are things that dualism explains better than the current model - for example, the phenomenon known as 'Terminal Lucidity'. In the most impressive cases, people with severe brain damage can't even remember the names and faces of their family members, nor can they hold a conversation. As they near death, they become 'lucid' and able to converse and remember clearly, despite the fact that the brain damage supposedly responsible for their affliction is still very much present.
AnduinX 6 months ago
People think they have spirit brains because they don't want to be troubled to use the real one.
bamcis17 7 months ago
ProfMTH, my problem is that to me is very difficult to know even what the matter is. What is the matter at the very fundamental level? Can you give an sufficient answer? Because all the explanation I have listen about didn't convince me at all. In a certain sense it is possible that the matter, beyond the subatomic level, is only spirit (non material substance), or maybe our reality is both, matter and soul. (sorry for my english)
sarotran 7 months ago
So Dualism is like Theism?
STRING3R 8 months ago
@STRING3R In a number of ways, yes.
ProfMTH 7 months ago
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION is " what it is ". How does it effect our physical reality? Where your directing your attention provides the pool of options to choose from. Also, PERCEPTION is a componemt as well ( read biology of belief ). Example of how this non physical thing effects the physical world: If you percieve percive someone as a threat, your body releases adrenaline providing the fight or flight response, causing congruent thoughts and actions as well. If you percieve him as friend...
joseph3217 7 months ago
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION and PERCEPTION are non physical, indivisible, simple causing factors in your feelings, thoughts and actions. Also PERCEPTION causes physiological changes in your very genome. ( This is studied in EPIGINETICS ) I can show how CONCIOUS PERCEPTION affects the physical brain and our very physiology. DETERMINISM is propogated mainly for pharmacuticle companies who would otherwise hold the only solution for our depression, disease and physiological shortcomings. BULL SHI
joseph3217 7 months ago
@ProfMTH CONCIOUS ATTENTION and PERCEPTION is your answer. And their is indeed scientific proof and common sense reasoning to back it up that they have an effect on our physical reality. The world is not flat, determinism is not acurate and I am not going to put my responsibility on a bull shit idea.
joseph3217 7 months ago
Reductionistic materialism is quite offensive. It's not life, it's biology. It's not biology, it's organic chemistry. It's not organic chemistry, it's physics..........There is no mind, only the brain......etc.
See how soulless this enterprise is becoming? Lawrence Krauss made a similarly offensive remark in his "A Universe from nothing" talk. Make no mistake, many scientist (materialist) are quite hostile to philosophy.
Keysteeze 8 months ago
Are all non-duelists still on land line dial up service? Not only is there a ghost tethered to your brain, it is in the service of demented chicken-pig psychopaths that want to keep their secret of spirit homo orgy cannibalism that is eating your ability to be anything other than a denial for dollars and position psychopath. Pardon the bluntness.
curesriches 8 months ago
Comment removed
curesriches 8 months ago
You will absolutely not understand something you try not to. You seem to have a pretty objective mind which I applaud you, for not being ignorant and simply stating facts...BUT I think you failed to realize that this guy is in a mind state that he is not the one who made this up, merely trying to figure it out. You can't find a reason for dualism if you try and understand it based on principals that would have you believe otherwise in the first place. Most anatomical structures don't make sense.
LeviathanX1989 8 months ago
@LeviathanX1989 " Most anatomical structures don't make sense."
Really? What's your basis for that claim?
ProfMTH 8 months ago
"Incoherent" is too strong a word to use here. I usually reverse engineer this type of discussion to form opinions. I had a friend who once read 3 digit numbers out my head - three times in a row! And with no coaching or coaxing on his part. The odds of this happening by chance approach one in a billion. You ask "By what mechanism can an immaterial substance (mind) interact with the brain?" Ask yourself "by what mechanism can a brain unattached to mine can read numbers out of my head".
CribNotes 8 months ago
Is not a "non-physical substance" a contradiction in terms? Isn't it necessary to have physicality to have substance?
tzedekyahu 8 months ago
mind... software
brain... hardware
hilliuno 9 months ago
@hilliuno An analogy that fails to enlighten as to what a mind apart from a brain is.
ProfMTH 9 months ago
@ProfMTH The term "dualism" is what truly throws the proverbial wrench in most people's spokes. There is no seperation of mind or brain. The spirit is energy. Which the objective mind should be able to comprehend ... think about how energy is stored in batterys.
j0r4l23 6 months ago
@ProfMTH: The notion that we should be able to observe the mind or reduce the mind to a substance is grounded in materialism. What if mind isn't a 'substance' at all? What if it simply IS?
AnduinX 6 months ago
@AnduinX Yeah, I don't know what "simply IS" means.
ProfMTH 6 months ago
@hilliuno Software is written/encoded onto hardware and each "emerges" (appears as a distint separate entity) as large collection(s) of bits get changed by the hardware into new bits or signals to other hardware.
Analogy FAIL.
boenrobot 7 months ago
To say that a non-physical 'thing' is incoherent because we cannot talk about it is limiting all possible knowledge to our limited sense experience. To us the idea may be unattainable but this does not discredit it
papasee 9 months ago
To say that a non physicslv
papasee 9 months ago
Well you seem to so badly look for a name or some evidence for something that doesn't exsist in the sense that you cannot grab it in your hands and examine it. Like trying to eplain to some blind person what green color is. It's something he could just not perceive. If science and physical measuring instruments cannot measure something beyond physical matter, then there will never be an actual proof for its exsistence and thus noone will give it a name.
tashows 9 months ago
You’re discounting “non-physical” because it cannot be related to physical descriptions? This, to me, seems to be stinking of circular logic. [For the dualist, being that “mind” is non-physical, it has no “thingness” related to it. “Non-physical” could then be paralleled to nothingness.
SuperBroman11 10 months ago
@SuperBroman11 "You’re discounting “non-physical” because it cannot be related to physical descriptions?"
No. In fact, "non-physical" descriptions--and I'm using 'description' merely for the sake of convenience--are almost always negatively related to physical ones, e.g., "immaterial", "non-spatial".
"So is a non-physical view of mind incoherent simply because it is non-physical?"
No. It's incoherent because no one can say what it is.
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH Okay, so you asked legodesi, “what exactly is a non-physical substance?” Taking this into consideration, regarding a major aspect of 'mind' (consciousness), I feel it is appropriate to ask ProfMTH what exactly it means for something to be a “neural correlate of consciousness?” I would like an intelligible answer as what this is.
SuperBroman11 10 months ago
@SuperBroman11 Well, I had to look it up, but here goes. The neural correlates of consciousness constitute the smallest set of neural events and structures sufficient for a given conscious percept or explicit memory. This case involves synchronized action potentials in neocortical pyramidal neurons. In your opinion, does positing the existence of some "non-physical", ghosty mind stuff explain it better, more thoroughly, even coherently?
ProfMTH 9 months ago
@ProfMTH No, in fact, "non-physical" does not explain "mind" better. However, this is not the issue for me. The issue is there is no "physical" theory of mind that comes even close to explaining mind. Thus, discounting theories of mind based on some prospect that everything can be reduced to physical structure is ignorant. I mean, I get action potentials, but come on, does this explain anything? Finally, to say dualism isn't useful indicates to me you haven't considered ethical theories.
SuperBroman11 9 months ago
This state of nothingness, some would argue, is “simple” and “nondivisible.”If one fails to describe what nothingness, non-physical, is, this should be of no surprise being that by definition non-physical would be incapable of having physical ascribed to it). So is a non-physical view of mind incoherent simply because it is non-physical?
SuperBroman11 10 months ago
Comment removed
SuperBroman11 10 months ago
In the past week, I learned much on the brain, consciousness, and subconscious .. in my current conclusion, I believe there are 2 possibilities. either everything exists within the brain and everything is merely an illusion OR that there is a god consciousness or subconscious that is beyond our conscious mind (the brain).
yic17 10 months ago
So do you not believe that we have a subconscious mind? Do you believe that it is our conscious mind (brain) that processes all of our body functions? Also, do you think the things (environments, people, scenarios) you see in your dream are created by your conscious mind? But how can you create them if you were not even conscious of creating them? Therefore, how can you say there isn't a mind beyond your brain?
yic17 10 months ago
@yic17 "So do you not believe that we have a subconscious mind?"
I didn't say that. The existence of a subconscious doesn't require dualism.
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH yes, that's a possibility. however, my recent study shows that it's highly possible for the subconscious mind to exist without the brain. that it is actually beyond our brain. look into precognitive dreaming and the subconscious mind connecting people from all over the world. it seems as if the subconscious mind is not individually based - not inside our brain.
yic17 10 months ago
@yic17 "my recent study shows that it's highly possible for the subconscious mind to exist without the brain. that it is actually beyond our brain."
Study? What are the details? Are the results published? Where would the subconscious mind exist "without the brain"?
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH I think there's a lot of study already on how subconscious mind is connected between people. Think of the incident where many times when one animal learns something - all the animals in another island would also learn it instantly without being in contact or seeing the first animal doing it. It seems that subconscious mind is beyond our conscious control. And to be honest I don't know where it exists.
yic17 10 months ago
The problem with physical monism is that it does not account for personal
experience. The reason for this is that what we call the physical is a concept we
have of the world that is based upon outer sensory perceptions. Attempting to
explain inner perceptions in terms of outer sensory perceptions(empiricism)
does not work well. The brain-mind are one entity but they are perceived thru
different mechanisms much like sound and light are different physical entities.
humansaretheworld 10 months ago
Disagree with the video for the most part. Experimenting with large amounts of psychedelics you can completely separate the body and mind as long as you understand whats happening when you go into it. And I mean COMPLETELY separate them where you can distinctly examine them separately. It's hard to explain what the mind is and where it exists. I don't expect anyone to take my word for it. I encourage people to research dualism and higher dimensions, go into a trip and experience it for yourself.
enjoypolydor 10 months ago
OR ABOVE!
SECOND ANSWER - Again equivalent really of asking someone 500 years back to explain a virus- we lack the advancement, don't have the equipment to determine that. I guess you could delve into the Christian perspective of the "soul" but it's slightly too bias for me. The only thing we know is that it is a non physical thing. That doesn't mean we should act like the logical positivists and deny all existence- that is obstruction of learning. We look for the answer. Until we find it.
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 "we lack the advancement, don't have the equipment to determine that"
It's not as if the "Is there something non-physical in the brain?" question is a new one. We've been at this for a VERY long time. Nevertheless, as Professor Paul Thagard of the University of Waterloo recently put it in Psychology Today (and I believe he was being generous in his assessment), "[T]here is scant evidence for the view that minds are anything more than brains."
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH The duration that the scientific world spends on a subject is inconsequential to whether the answer exists or does not exist WHETHER YOU PUT IT IN CAPITALS OR NOT. Secondly putting in a quote that a Professor disagrees with me, is all well and good, but can you put in the actual evidence so I can understand why thank you. Presumably he has great knowledge over the subject that no scientist in the future will ever be able to overcome.
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@ProfMTH Scant evidence? what about ndes? mental mediumship experiments etc?.
bigguy200 10 months ago
I don't know, the basis of your argument seems to be (at least to me) saying that because we don't understand dualism it doesn't exist? I mean you said that we don't know how the two could interact- doesn't mean they can't. You said we don't understand what a non-physical being is, fair enough, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
If I told someone 500 years ago that something small (a virus) and invisible (to them) was making them ill- they could have used the same argument.
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 "I don't know, the basis of your argument seems to be (at least to me) saying that because we don't understand dualism it doesn't exist?"
Incorrect.
In a nutshell, dualism explains nothing that cannot already be sufficiently explained without reference to it. It offers no information that helps us to understand anything about how the brain works. Worse yet, not only does it fail to answer any questions, but it raises a host of unanswerable questions.
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH Quick reply :)
Dualism answers the question to why we bother thinking about philosophical questions in the first place. No other animal (I assume) does, so why us?
It explains the reason for excess (mostly unnecessary) thought, just to get a snack " will it make me fat, do I feel like salty or sweet". Surely if we were just matter the process would be " hunger- get snack".
Philosophy is suppose to raise up questions, it's not neat like science "the more I know, the less I understand"
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 "Dualism answers the question to why we bother thinking about philosophical questions in the first place. No other animal (I assume) does, so why us?"
So what's the answer? What does dualism tell us about this that cannot otherwise be explained sufficiently without dualism?
"It explains the reason for excess (mostly unnecessary) thought...."
How? What's the explanation?
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH If we were merely materialistic beings, we would just be a process of machinery. Instead we are as Jean Paul Sartre said "beings for themselves" we can separate ourselves from situations and make observations which lead to our decision making, we can therefore go through a deeper analysis about factors that would otherwise be inconsequential to a plant/ animal. Their functions go towards supporting their physical substance (with food) rather than their mental ones (with thought)
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 I just don't see how any of this requires something nonphysical. By the way, what is that something?
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH The similarity with humans and animals is of an extent that they should have the capability our level of advancement. Dolphin brains are bigger than ours. A computer generates 100,000,000 bits a second. Yet neither (although more physically advanced than us) contemplate decisions to that self- awareness level that humans do. So one can infer there is a non physical element. I have to answer the next question below- not enough space SEE SECOND ANSWER BELOW!!!!
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 "Dolphin brains are bigger than ours."
But not nearly as complex.
"one can infer there is a non physical element"
Again, I don't see why. It seems your only reason is that other animals with brains can't do as many or as complex stuff as we can. That hardly seems reason to conclude that we have some sort of ghost running the mental show behind the scenes in our brain.
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH Okay, Sperm whales have more complex brains.
I think you slightly misunderstood me. I meant that:
1. Human beings are composed of physical matter
2. Other beings share similar structures and complexity, physically (ape/whale/elephant)/computers)
4. None of the factors in 2 have our level of self awareness or advancement
5. Our physical properties therefore are not enough
6. There must be something other (not a ghost!)
7. Since it is not physical it must be non physical
yeah?
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 "There must be something other (not a ghost!)"
But you don't know what that "something" is, right?
ProfMTH 10 months ago
@ProfMTH Anyone who claims that their scientific knowledge is complete and therefore accounts for all the "unknown" factors about our existence, is a fool. There is absolutely no wrong in accepting that your understanding of something is limited by lack of resources. When a theory is not meeting standard you evaluate it, see if there are any theories that can fit better. - I think you disregard dualism too fast because of the religious connotations that surround it, do you disagree?
babycuddle2 10 months ago
@babycuddle2 I disregard it for the reasons set forth in the video and the videos to which I linked. Among those reasons is that I cannot get a coherent answer from any of its advocates as to what we're supposed to be looking for.
ProfMTH 10 months ago
I agree with your first point, but the second point (what IS it) is like asking "what *is* energy? what's it made of?"
I've had this discussion with my physics teacher in school, and it lead to a religious discussion (or sort of a debate), but we got no plausible answer from "what is energy?" apart from "energy is matter"
Natovr10 11 months ago
Just wait until you have an OBE where certain things of the real physical world you see in that OBE that you could not of possibly know before the OBE, but find out and observe after you come back from the OBE, oh wait you'll never have one of those. You have already closed down the channels and aligned your belief against it. I know a world you may never discover!
VarvaraBell 11 months ago
@VarvaraBell Why would we wait until we have one ourselves? We could just set up an experiment where someone who supposedly has OBEs gets to know something from reality that he/she couldn't know. Then you proved that there's something more to our minds.
Such and easy experiment, yet we never heard of anyone doing it and succeeding. Maybe they didn't like the results?
Thunderios 11 months ago
To the creator of this video I have one question, WHAT IS SUBSTANCE? gotcha bitch
soldatheero 1 year ago
What if what it "is" is simply what it does and/or what's left after taking away what it is not?
IPmanstam 1 year ago
@IPmanstam What?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
@ProfMTH "to coherently account for what something is" you can simply say what it does, or, alternatively, what it is not.
IPmanstam 11 months ago
QualiaSoup's "excellent" video was based largely on a false understanding of the philosophical term substance. A substance in ontology is something that is non-reducible and holds reducible properties. Also, dualism provides a solution to the hard problem of consciousness, so you can't say it has no explanatory power.
BTW I'm not a substance dualist, I'm a panpsychist and a property dualist.
vaguelyhumanoid 1 year ago
@vaguelyhumanoid "dualism provides a solution to the hard problem of consciousness"
How so?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
I would like clarification, please. I've watched this video multiple times (including the ones concerning "What IS God?" and I'm confused as to what you're looking for. If you don't mind, could you please give an example of what you're looking for with a question like, 'What is a human?' Just so that I may understand what you're trying to discern. Thank you. (I'm not trying to refute anything, it's kinda like looking for a formula in a math book so that I can apply the formula to get a solution)
sumrblizrd 1 year ago
@sumrblizrd "I'm not trying to refute anything...."
It would be fine if you were. ;-) With a human being, one can coherently speak in terms of the physical or material. I've yet to see anyone coherently speak in terms of nonphysical or nonmaterial. When conversation turns to things such as "spirit", what one starts to hear are negations, e.g., it's not physical, it's not material, it's not temporal, it's not visible. Well, that's fine. But what *is* it?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
What believers in this stuff fail to realize is that despite its "immateriality" the soul, if it exists, seems weirdly bound by all sorts of material forces. Gravity, for one, since souls don't go spinning off the earth. Presumably inertia and electromagnetic forces -- because otherwise what keeps the soul stuck inside our heads when we walk around (because despite being "immaterial" our souls have to be in our heads because we can lose most of the rest of our bodies and not be dead).
prodprod 1 year ago
(cont'd) -- And, of course, for those who believe we are "ensouled" at conception, what does that say about the "size" of the immaterial soul? That it's (at most) the size of a fertilized egg, though immaterial -- and then migrates to the head area as the fetus develops?
It all just gets goofier and goofier the more you try to think about it as something real.
prodprod 1 year ago
Each Consciousness likes and to be in peace full, love full, bliss full, immortal, etc, etc..., Mind-Body medicine evidence is that if only when have the above defined consciousness and feelings will live healthy and recover from diseases quicker than otherwise. This means consciousness and body is made for each other. Matter has tendencies to go to stable state then why consciousness if materialistic not following the same rule to stay in most stable. Rejection without proof is unscientific.
bharadrm 1 year ago
Dualism has problems, but so does materialism. Materialism also cannot explain the subjectivity and intentionality of consciousness. McGinn and Chalmers both argue that these aspects of consciousness are, in principle, impossible to explain. The reason some people are drawn to it is because consciousness has some characteristics that seem impossible in principle to explain using any third person methodology like science, math, logic, or metaphor. I'm an atheist towards the mind
philosophywpaul 1 year ago
There may not be any physical difference, still there is difference. The question you have asked me, for that answer is "NO", Interpretation of physical things depends on abstractions used in reaching conclusion. For example same rose flower is perceived differently by chemist and poet, but is it same, however abstraction created by chemist and poet are different, hence its interpretation is different. My point is not the differences in abstraction, but why such differences exist in abstractions
bharadrm 1 year ago
It is a laughable presentation.... I enjoyed this but not convinced ... Here I present one contradiction in your presentation ... If there is no dualism than there should not be disagreement between "you" and "me". But I do not agree with you and vice versa. As both your physical body and mine both are made up of same matter than there should not be any differences. The differences shows that "You" and "I" are different.
bharadrm 1 year ago
@bharadrm So it's your assertion that what accounts for our *physical* differences is something non-physical, is that correct?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
@bharadrm "As both your physical body and mine both are made up of same matter than there should not be any differences."
Your brain and my brain are similar but by no means identical, so we shouldn't expect that "there should not be disagreement between "you" and "me"" "[i]f there is no dualism."
nichtmuttersprachler 1 year ago
@bharadrm I don't follow your assertion that mind-brain dualism is proven by disagreement between two people or even in one person's mind.
It makes just as much sense to reverse your claim:
"I assert that dualism can't be true because people disagree. If there were mind-brain dualism, there would be no disagreements because all our minds would be one matter, with no differences."
Because we are talking about imaginary things, like god or the "mind", it's easy to give it any attribute you like.
wearealltubes 1 year ago
At the very least it would take you years to get from point A to point B thinking in a materialistic way. It's terribly inefficient and even non-functional. Thoughts are necessarily contentful. The mind doesn't think in materialistic terms.
baigandine 1 year ago
I've heard some people talk about the brain like a computer and the mind as a program that is running on that computer. Is that mind body duality or was that an old psychology hypothesis?
About the "it doesn't tell you what it is" don't all newly discovered phenomena or items start out without observing it's properties and then giving it a name?
Disthron 1 year ago
@Disthron
Agree, we are prepared to BELIEVE in the so called etheric part of any machine or equipment that operates in base of instructions, but still we are reluctant to believe that Body-Mind dualism could or even be more complex.
Dreams, thoughts and ideas could be falsified and I can lie to a psycologist, we can not see a though or an idea unless it is manifested in physical form. Nobody here can tell me that I am thinking and imagining.
AmaruRuna 1 year ago
Hmm... I'd disagree with the "incoherent" part. I don't think that not being able to identify something in terms of what we already know is evidence against it. I think coherent attributes should be enough. If, for instance, you could demonstrate that the brain was receiving information that could not have originated via normal means, that would be evidence for some other source of information, though we really couldn't make any other claims about it.
pyVlad 1 year ago
Forget whether consciousness/the soul is separate from the brain. That is a different issue from whether the mind is separate from the brain. In regards to the latter, the mind IS separate from the brain because you can read the former (the brain), but not the latter (the mind). Neuroscience says a lot about the neurotransmitters which allow emotions to manifest themselves. But, it does not tell us about the thoughts bringing those emotions. Only the thinker can do that if he/she decides to.
metaldude82 1 year ago
@SuperiorDeity "...on the upside you can have cake while you live."
Which is great--especially red velvet cake. ;-)
ProfMTH 1 year ago
Strange, Qualia's video is now private :<
YourBrainOnReligion 1 year ago
It's sort of disheartening to see people so attached to what is naturally intuitive for no other reason than it feels right.
dookiecheez 1 year ago
What is it? Its consciousness.
SinfulMessiah 1 year ago
@ProfMTH
3:53
How can non-physical interact with physical world?
Mitche23 1 year ago
2 months ago @ProfMTH The meaning of pain is unknown, you sound like a smart guy, should should know that.
anestics
InquisitorDracomual 1 year ago
this is all about the religious trying to qualify their beliefs against scientific facts.
adzug 1 year ago
What is matter...is that, too, incoherent?...of course not, matter is "there" right? And we find it there, hmm, because we are looking...seems to me this logic is fool proof...prof's argument is most coherent...not!
SuperBroman11 1 year ago
@SuperBroman11 It would be useful if you wrote something coherent. Your extreme overtrying (yet totally failing) at sarcasm has transformed your comment into gibberish.
ProfMTH 1 year ago
@ProfMTH Make a coherent argument about what matter actually is. Differentiate this understanding of matter with what is considered to "mind," and show "mind" is simply matter and not vice versa. Of course these may all be explained by the physical; I don't doubt that. I'm not arguing for dualism; I just want you to explain what "physical" is and what makes it that way. In your spare time, explain the placebo effect, and tell me how a paramecium, a single-celled organism, can learn new things.
SuperBroman11 1 year ago
A qucik yquestion. Are you are a materialist,? if yes are you also a determinist ?, Determinisn if true, would result in all arguments, ( for metaphysics, materialism,etc ) being 'detrmined' by our brains, and bodys, interacting with our environemnt. We would have now way of knowing that any of the arguments are true, since our belief as to the truth or otherweise would be detrmined. So are you a materialist, ? if yes are you a determinsit ? If not, how do you square the two beliefs ?
ironjohnlad 1 year ago
Dualism is mostly a way to deal with the difficulty of imagining our own consciousness arises only from mechanistic events in the brain. I think its useful as a possible motivation to seek unknown properties of matter when studying the brain. We can acknowledge that our own experience "suggests" a mechanism we currently don't understand.
LuciousVBogeymanProd 1 year ago
@LuciousVBogeymanProd Agreed ! Also a 'hard determism' that seems to spring from matgerialistic philosopy, is self refuting ! see my question above to the Prof ! It is not as simple as just picking holes in Duelism, we also have to explore the implications of the alternatives.
ironjohnlad 1 year ago
lol
gamingeugenics 1 year ago
Humans are ignorant thus they do not wish to accept the brain as the center of thought. It is the human fear of death being manifested with a fictional thing.
jonwayneisgod 1 year ago
Dualism is growing because of the problem of qualia. The existence of qualia, has no explanatory power... but is certainly exists. This is the problem presented by Searle, Nagel, Mcginn, and others. The "What is it likeness" and "intentionality" present serious problems for any Naturalistic/Materialistic/Physicalist view of the world. Yes, dualism is inchoherent.... but materialism is also at its limits in the face of qualia and these new forms of dualism (Cartesian Dualism=straw man).
philosophywpaul 1 year ago
Pain is to let you know something is wrong. No pain = no fix implemented = eventual death.
dirtydonki 1 year ago
im really interested in this, and am a psychology student. I really want to see if there's a way of finding that relationship between mental and brain events.
But my real question is, you believe more in a Monist perspective then?
12345l6789 1 year ago
Could you please, possibly in a private message, explain to me the premise of mind-body dualism? I realize beliefs such as Chan Buddhism are non-dualistic, but I'm having trouble identifying what dualism actually is. The wiki article is too focused on research and not enough on example, and I appreciate being enlightened by someone who seems to know what they're talking about. Thank you!
clcoc20s 1 year ago
The ability to feel, that is what sets apart from dead matter, without this ability, we are dead.
cmpresents 1 year ago
@cmpresents Are you saying our ability to feel is nonphysical?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
@ProfMTH Exactly, that is where the secret lies, then of course you have the mind, which is infinetly complex. In order for an animal to survive, it has to feel it's environment, or else it's just a machine and we all know that machines don't feel.
cmpresents 1 year ago
@cmpresents And how exactly does this nonphysical ability to feel interact with our brain and the rest of our physical body?
ProfMTH 1 year ago
@ProfMTH I don't know, do you know how we feel pain and pleasure.
cmpresents 1 year ago
@cmpresents The central nervous system seems to explain it.
ProfMTH 1 year ago