Mind Transcends Brain

Consciousness cannot be explained by materialism because it cannot be material -- the mind is more than the brain.

This atheist position posits three main arguments:
1. Irreducibility
- 1a) Qualia
- 1b) Leibniz's Mill
- 1c) Monochromatic Man
2. Phenomenological Non-Necessity
3. Correlation Conflation

We then link this Philosophy of Mind to the general philosophies of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche.

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Despite the numerous attempts to salvage materialism/physicalism from this attack, the points explicated remain irrefutable.

Instead of attempting to explain consciousness by contemporary science, science must change to include consciousness as fundamental - as I am sure it one day will.

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As an appendix, watch my video on Schopenhauer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39S8nFA_50U&feature=related

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[scathenc1]

You make the assumption that qualia exist and are things unto themselves, which I believe is incorrect. As a computational neuroscientist, I believe qualia can be accounted for as belief states which can be represented purely by the information processing of neurons. You imagine that there is a "viewer" which is experiencing "red". I believe there is just a single state "experiencing-red" which is associated with other states and behaviours. In my case red does not need to be defined.

[Ontologistics]

@scathenc1

What is the ontological status of the 'represented' of the 'belief state' you mention? In its conceptual and material analysis, neurons and their activity are not the same thing as mental states, but merely correlated therewith.

Moreover, I do not in fact believe in the division of 'viewer' and 'red' which you accuse me of. I think most computational neuroscientists assume an outdated materialist epistemology without question.

[scathenc1]

@Ontologistics Merely correlated therewith? Is photoshop merely correlated with the activity of the cpu and ram?

[Ontologistics]

@scathenc1

It's a common error to think there's an analogy between mind-brain and software-hardware. Software is unconscious, it is we who become conscious of software.

The deeper problem is relationship between unconscious matter and conscious mind.

[ThisOneIsTaken]

@SecularNumanist

While I am no fan of Dennet I couldn't find any negative comment by Pinker about him. Do you have any reference about it?

[pawlo881012]

cont.. do we perceive secondary characteristics as it is (perceiving a red chair plus the influence of light) or it is absolutely colorless and it is up to our consciousness (or senses) to designate a characteristic (color, smell...etc). please enlighten me with these things =)

[pawlo881012]

I agree most with what you are saying but.."red cannot exist without the mind".. you support this proposition by stating that 2 persons may perceive the same stimulus(color) and identify 2 different colors. I find this puzzling since we must take into account that one maybe color blind--not normal. of course we must now grapple on the conception on what is normal.. and how do we know what is normal. the other things is we must tackle is about perception. do we perceive the..cont..

[DyingWithDignity666]

@Teketzis daniel dennet is a materialist of course he deluded he will never understand consciousness

[SecularNumanist]

@pissantegoist

Yes but Spinoza and those before him made the fatal mistake of assuming the intellect to be primal, rather than will.

[SecularNumanist]

@MaxFlared

Lol dualists.