

You Are Not "Your Brain" - DiabloD3
http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2012/04/you-are-not-your-brain.html

======
apl
The blurb that sparked the article:

    
    
      > We are not our brains. We are "conscious agents"... It's
      > very good news that you are not your brain, because when
      > your mind finds its true power, the result is healing,
      > inspiration, insight, self-awareness, discovery,
      > curiosity, and quantum leaps in personal growth. The
      > brain is totally incapable of such things. After all, if 
      > it is a hard-wired machine, there is no room for sudden
      > leaps and renewed inspiration...
    

Not to slight the blog response under discussion, but the quoted paragraph
betrays such deep ignorance of basic neurobiology that any reaction seems like
a waste of time. It's quite literally a (neuro-)philosophical equivalent of
"Lots of spinach, ergo sum".

~~~
kanzure
I find it highly fascinating that the Wikipedia article on "consciousness"
says it's basically, well, crap. See for yourself:

"Consciousness - The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness.
The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible
without a grasp of what consciousness means. Many fall into the trap of
equating consciousness with self-consciousness—to be conscious it is only
necessary to be aware of the external world. Consciousness is a fascinating
but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does,
or why it has evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written on it."

"The most compelling argument for the existence of consciousness is that the
vast majority of mankind have an overwhelming intuition that there truly is
such a thing.[20] Skeptics argue that this intuition, in spite of its
compelling quality, is false, either because the concept of consciousness is
intrinsically incoherent, or because our intuitions about it are based in
illusions. Gilbert Ryle, for example, argued that traditional understanding of
consciousness depends on a Cartesian dualist outlook that improperly
distinguishes between mind and body, or between mind and world. He proposed
that we speak not of minds, bodies, and the world, but of individuals, or
persons, acting in the world. Thus, by speaking of 'consciousness' we end up
misleading ourselves by thinking that there is any sort of thing as
consciousness separated from behavioral and linguistic understandings.[21]
More generally, many philosophers and scientists have been unhappy about the
difficulty of producing a definition that does not involve circularity or
fuzziness.[17]"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness>

So, I don't find the word very useful.

------
singular
I think the biggest counterargument (if one were needed) is that if I start
doing things to your brain, it affects your mind. If I cut a part of your
brain out, your mind is impacted. This has been shown by injuries to the
brain, lobotomies, etc. etc.

Beyond that, we could get into all sorts of philosophical arguments about the
link between the mind and the brain, but it seems to me as a somewhat
philosophically naive person that this fact is a clear and demonstrable link
between the brain and the mind.

~~~
SpiderX
I think no one here assumes Chopra speaks with any authority as to the
physiology of the brain. Yes, he's a doctor - of internal medicine with a
specialism in endocrinology, but that hardly qualifies him to discuss the
brain. That being said, I think the key to understanding the brain physically
is to read this book: An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the
Mind by Ian Glynn

And to understand the inner workings of the brain and how it theoretically
functions:

Society of Mind by Marvin Lee Minsky

I believe the idea that the mind is just a "set of agents" is best explained
in "Society of Mind".

------
blueprint
One thing I've never heard a neuroscientist answer (although I have asked at
least a dozen) is how to distinguish between the expression of consciousness
and the generation of consciousness (i.e. the difference between a light bulb
and an electrical generator). It's interesting to consider this question when
we include the fact that the brain can't really operate without good blood
flow into the brain. When blood flow is blocked the function of the brain (as
well as the expression of consciousness) are blocked.

~~~
apl
I genuinely have no clue what your question means and entails (as a
neuroscientist with a reasonable undergraduate career in anglo-american
philosophy). Can you elaborate?

~~~
Cushman
If I were going to say something that sounded like that, it would be this:

We think of a lightbulb as a device which generates light, but it isn't that
_intrinsically_ ; the filament glows only when electrified, and the bulb is
only a small part of the light-generating system which includes an electrical
generator (and, presumably, a burning fuel source). The bulb is the place
where the light first becomes visible, but it makes less sense to say that it
is the place the light _comes from_.

Similarly, we think of the brain as a thinking machine, but it isn't that
intrinsically; it is only a small part of a much larger thinking _system_
which includes functions of respiration, circulation, ingestion, et cetera. So
we can say that the brain may be the place where thinking first becomes
noticeable _per se_ , but it makes less sense to say that it is where thought
is _created_.

Which is all well and good. I'm not sure what part of it is supposed to be a
hard question about neurology rather than a PHIL100 essay topic, though.

~~~
FreakLegion
The light bulb is definitely a less-than-apt metaphor. I think the crux of
what he's asking about is the line between a system's production of
subjectivity and a subject's experience of it (which constitutes the subject
as such). The separation between the two seems to be absolute, i.e. if "brains
cause minds," as Searle puts it, no amount of introspection on the part of the
mind allows it access to the brain. Consciousness is a one-way trip.

How to distinguish between the two might be an interesting question from, say,
a Chinese Room[1] or p-zombie[2] standpoint, which might have some
philosophical bearing on AI. But that's about all I can think of off the top
of my head.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room>

2\. <http://www.skepdic.com/zombies.html>

------
whileonebegin
I would go so far as to say that we may one day be able to take away the legs,
arms, organs, torso, head, everything that will eventually break down. Then
upload our brains into a virtual, (dare I say) MMO world and not even notice
the difference.

Of course, we'd have to get around the problem of parting with "self" when
transitioning to the virtual immortal life. And therein lies the philosophical
problem of the conscious.

~~~
nimbleNima
Wouldn't this be similar to the concept behind The Matrix? You're virtually
plugged in; you feel like yourself, but the steak you're eating has been
graphically programmed inside this "MMO" world to trigger the appropriate
stimulation in your brain to make the entire experience "real."

One thing remains inconsistent though. I understand that we remove our legs,
arms, organs, torso, head, etc. in pursuit of becoming immortal via a virtual
life, but... isn't the brain itself also within the same classification as the
aforementioned body parts? It's biodegradable.

Say we find a way to preserve the brain eternally, wouldn't it then become
irrelevant to live through a virtual life? For if we can preserve the brain,
the same method can be applied to preserve the rest of the body that we
earlier considered ridding ourselves from.

The mind is a metaphysical repository. The brain is not the cause of the mind;
it is only a channel that allows us to associate with--and add to--it. If we
were to say that the brain is the cause of the mind, then--by necessity--upon
physical death, the mind would have to vaporize, vanish, cease to exist. Now..
our identity IS our mind. We generally don't identify who we are through our
bodies. Our memories, habits, traits, tendencies, affinities, aversions, and
reactions all emanate from our mind. And if we subscribe to the latter notion
--that our minds continue to exist even after we end our mortal lives--then
that postulates that there must exist another world, an accentuated world,
devoid of time and space, that allows an endless progression of fulfillment
and enlightenment and an infinite array of things to do, only without an aging
body to drag us around as we attempt to do them.

------
beosrocks
Related article from _Science_ magazine, vol 210, no. 4475 (Dec 12, 1980)

 _Is Your Brain Really Necessary?_
<http://www.rifters.com/real/articles/Science_No-Brain.pdf>

tl;dr: "the brain can work in conditions we would have thought impossible".

